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FEBRUARY ^□□5

Vol. 29 No. 2
(Whole Number 349)

Next Issue on Sale February 1, 2005
Cover Art by Donato Giancola

IMovelettes

16 The 120 Hours of Sodom Jim Grimsley

40 Angel Kills William Sanders

76 Polyhedrons Robert A. Metzger

106 Oxygen Rising R. Garcia y Robertson

Short Stories

54 The Two Old Women Kage Baker

68 Parachute Kid Edd Vick

96 Dead Men on Vacation Leslie What

Poetry

39 Omnivores Mario Milosevic

66 TimeFlood Mike Allen and Ian Watson

77 Somewhere in the

Moebius' House W. Gregory Stewart

□er/vrtivieimts

4 Editorial Sheila Williams

B Reflections; Grand Masters,

THE Sequel Robert Silverberg

IB On the Net: Afraid of

THE Darknet James Patrick Kelly

136 On Books Peter Heck

14B The SF Conventional Calendar Erwin S. Strauss

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EDITORIAL

by Sheila Williams

O ne of the most rewarding as-
pects of attending the annual
World Science Fiction Conven-
tion is the opportunity to meet
and talk to readers of Asimov’s. In
the past, though, it hasn’t always
been easy to find you at the con-
vention. Even before I became edi-
tor of the magazine, my schedule
was always full. There are panel
commitments, meetings with au-
thors at breakfast, limch, and din-
ner, and a host of other obhgations.
You could grab me for a quick mo-
ment at the end of a panel, but
generally, panelists are expected to
exit the room and make way for
the next discussion. Meanwhile,
it’s off to the next panel discussion
or meeting for me. For the last few
American Worldcons, however,
we’ve set up a table in the conven-
tion’s Dealers’ Room.

Our table has been a very excit-
ing place. The schedule there is
filled with authors signing maga-
zines and books while the associate
editor of Asimov’s, Brian Bieniows-
ki, and Analog’s associate editor,
Trevor Quachri, work the table
continuously to sell subscriptions.
At the 2004 Worldcon in Boston,
attendees could get signatures
finm Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon
Williams, Nancy Kress, Esther M.
Friesner, Allen M. Steele, Charles
Stress, Mike Resnick, Robert Reed,
and many others. Connie Willis
and James Patrick Kelly actually
signed on for extra hours (“were
dragooned” Jim might say, but
don’t hsten to him). In addition to

signing autographs, they, and many
of our other authors, enthusiastical-
ly hawked subscriptions to Dell’s
two science fiction magazines.

When the lines for autographs
were too long, it was often hard to
find a moment to speak to sub-
scribers. During quiet times, though,
I had some delightful discussions
with new and long-time readers.
Many young people stopped by to
say that they had only recently dis-
covered the world of SF magazines,
or that collections of science fiction
magazines had been handed down
to them by their parents. Some-
times their parents were there
with them, writing out checks to
ensure that the next generation of
Asimov’s readers lives on. A num-
ber of readers stopped by to pur-
chase subscriptions for their local
hbraries, too, which I think is a ter-
rific idea.

I had several conversations with
people about the content of the
magazine. It was clear that many
readers like adventure stories with
happy endings, but it was also clear
that the people I spoke to enjoy be-
ing shocked, terrified, and sad-
dened, too. Certainly no one was
looking simply for the pat ending
or for stories ^at repeat the same
ideas over and over again.

One particularly interesting dis-
cussion I had was with a new sub-
scriber who suggested that we
have a special section on our web-
site where we could post a reader’s
favorite scientific site of the month.
I thought that was a very good

4

SHEIIA WILLIAMS

Editor

BRIAN BIENIOWSKI

Associate Editor

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Contributing Editor

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ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE

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Tel: (212) 686-7188
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Stories from Asbnov's have won 41 Hugos and 24 Nebula Awards, and our
editofs have received 17 Hugo Awards for Best Erfitoc Asimov's was also
the 2001 recipient of the Locus Award for Best Magazine.

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February 2005

idea, too, and we were going to cor-
respond further about it in email,
but I haven’t heard from him since
the Worldcon. So, if you are that
loyal reader, or are just interested
in joining this discussion, please
send me email at asimovs@dell
magazines.com. It’s a concept that
needs reader support in the form of
viable suggestions . Remember, you
can use the same address to send
letters for pubhcation in the maga-
zine. As I mentioned in my last ed-
itorial, letters can be on any sub-
ject connected to the magazine.
They can be controversial, but they
must be civil, and they may be
edited or shortened before they ap-
pear in Asimov’s.

Recently our parent company,
Dell Magazines, has come up with
another way for us to interact with
our readers. In late May, they are
sponsoring a science fiction cruise.
Gardner Dozois and I will be aboard
representing Asimou’s and Stanley
Schmidt, the editor of Analog, our
sister magazine, will also be there.
Connie Willis and Jim Kelly, as
well as Kevin J. Anderson, his wife,
Rebecca Moesta, and Robert J.
Sawyer, have graciously agreed to
come along (Connie might say
they’ve “been shanghaied,” but
don’t Usten to her either). The ship
will set sail from Port Canaveral,
Florida, and will make ports of call
around the Western Caribbean. Al-
though all the usual cruise ameni-
ties will be available for our read-
ers, only the members of our group
will be allowed to attend the sci-
ence fiction activities.

There will be panels, readings.

talks, movies, and writing work-
shops. Jim Kelly will lead an SF
trivia contest, play the Mafia party
game in the evening with anyone
who’s interested, and conduct at
least one of the workshops. Connie
Wilhs, who is as fiinny in person as
she is in some of her fiction, will
give a speech on “The Art of Come-
dy.” There will be two cocktail par-
ties, open only to the members of
our group, and each night, the au-
thors and editors will join different
tables of cruise-goers for dinner.
Each person joining the science fic-
tion cruise will have at least one
opportunity to dine with an author
or editor, and the first fifty people
who sign up will be able to pick the
author or editor they dine with.
You can find out more about the
cruise at www.sciencefiction
cruise.com. I hope I have a chance
to share a toast with many of you.

In other news: I am pleased to
congratulate two of our long-time
columnists for awards they’ve re-
cently received. It was quite excit-
ing at the 2004 Worldcon to see Er-
win S. Strauss (also known as
“Filthy Pierre”) pick up two awards.
Our intrepid Conventional Calen-
dar keeper was the winner of the E.
Everett Evans “Big Heart” Award
and a special Noreascon 4 Commit-
tee Award. In addition, our book re-
viewer, Paul Di Filippo, received
the French “Grand Prix de I’lmagi-
naire 2005” for his short story
“Sisyphus and the Stranger.” We’re
very happy to see both of these con-
tributors receive the honors they
deserve. O

6

Sheila Williams

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REFLECTIONS

by Robert Silverberg

GRAND MASTERS, THE SEQUEL

L ong-term readers of this column
with long-term memories may
remember the following nine
paragraphs, which were pub-
lished here exactly foiu* years ago,
and which I am going to reprint
now for reasons that Fll make clear
very shortly for those who haven’t
already figured it out from the
heading above:

The Grand Master award of the
Science Fiction Writers of America
is one of the two highest distinc-
tions our field confers — ^the other
being the Guest of Honor designa-
tion at the World Science Fiction
Convention. These awards recog-
nize a lifetime of significant work;
and anyone who wants to under-
stand the history of science fiction
in the twentieth century need only
look at SFWA’s list of Grand Mas-
ters.

It was Jerry Poumelle, when he
was President of SFWA nearly thir-
ty years ago, who dreamed up the
idea of the Grand Master award.
Since 1965 SFWA had been giving
its Nebula trophy annually to the
authors of the best novels and short
fiction of the previous year; but
Poumelle felt liiat the accomplish-
ments of some of our greatest fig-
ures were being slighted, because
they had done their outstanding
work in the years prior to the Nel>
ula’s inception. So he proposed a
special award — an oversized ver-
sion of the handsome block of Lu-
dte that is a Nebula — to be award-
ed by vote of SFWA’s officers and

past presidents in acknowledgment
of the significant work those writ-
ers had done over the long term.
And, to avoid cheapening the value
of the award, Poumelle stipulated
that it should be given no more of-
ten than six times every decade.

Poumelle’s suggestion was ea-
gerly accepted by ffie membership,
and in 1975 the first Grand Master
Nebula was given to Robert A.
Heinlein, surely one of the defining
figures of modem science fiction.
Heinlein’s recent work had come
under attack by critics who foimd
fault with it on literary and even
political groimds, but no one ques-
tioned the greatness of the man
who had written Methusaleh’s
Children, Double Star, The Moon is
a Harsh Mistress, and the Future
History stories. (And, in fact, his
career was far from over even in
1975: he would go on to produce
such well-received novels as Friday
and The Cat Who Walks Through
Walls in the years following his re-
ceiving of the award.)

In those da}^ nearly all the writ-
ers who had clustered around the
great editor John W. Campbell of
Astounding Science Fiction to cre-
ate the so-called “Golden Age” peri-
od of the 1940s were still alive, and
they were the obvious choices for
grand-masterhood in the next few
years. And so Jack Williamson,
who had given us The Legion of
Space back in the 1930s, and such
(^Iden Age Campbell-era classics
as the Seetee and Humanoids
books, became the second Grand

8

Asimov's

Master in 1976. Clifford D. Simak,
of City and Way Station fame,
joined the group the following year.

Because the original rules, since
amended, stipulated only six awards
per decade, no Grand Master was
chosen in 1978; but in 1979 anoth-
er golden-age favorite, L. Sprague
de Camp, he of Lest Darkness Fall
and The Incomplete Enchanter and
ever so much more, was honored.
Another year was skipped, and
then in 1980 Fritz Leiber {Conjure
Wife, The Wanderer, Gather, Dark-
ness!) was the pick.

Under the rules then in effect no
further award could be given imtil
1984, when Andre Norton became
the first female Grand Master (a
designation that created certain
grammatical problems that have
never been adequately resolved)
and also the first who had not been
associated with the Campbell edi-
torship.

You may be wondering, at this
point, why the name of Isaac Asi-
mov has not yet been included in
the list. As it happened, Isaac was
wondering the same thing, since
he, too, had been a key member of
the John Campbell team, and by

the 1980s the name of “Asimov”
was virtuafiy synonymous with sci-
ence fiction, as the very magazine
you are reading now will testify.
And so, in his goodnaturedly self-
promoting way, Isaac was given to
observing, far and wide, that a
certain conspicuous figure of the
era had not yet been given his due.
He said it playfully, of course, and
made it clear that he was just jok-
ing — ^but in fact there was no small
degree of seriousness beneath his
clowning. He privately suspected
that he was not going to five many
more years, and he wanted to win
that award before he died.

It is quite true that one of the
considerations involved in nomi-
nating people for the award is an
actuarial one. Even great writers
don’t live forever, and we have al-
ways tried to honor oim oldest ones
first. Heinlein and De Camp had
been bom in 1907, Williamson in
1908, Leiber in 1910, Norton in
1912, Simak all the way back in
1904. Isaac — ^bom in 1920 — ^was a
veritable youth by comparison. No
one was aware in the 1980s of how
quickly Isaac’s health was weaken-
ing, though. So, despite his other-

Cruise the Western Caribbean

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Reflections: Grand Masters, the Sequel

9

February 2005

wise quite valid claim and all his
yelps, he simply had to sit by and
wait, even while his great friend
and rival, Arthur C. Clarke (bom
1917) carried off the 1986 trophy.

But of course a group of (Jrand
Masters of Science Fiction that did
not include Isaac Asimov was plain-
ly incomplete; and his torment
came to an end in 1987 at a ceremo-
ny in New York. I went up to him af-
terward to congratulate him as he
stood there cradling the trophy in
his arms; and as I put out my hand
he feigned a look of great alarm, as
though I were trying to take it away
from him, and cried, “You can’t have
it! You can’t have it! You have to
wait another fifteen years!”

Well, lo and behold, etc., the fif-
teen years predicted by Isaac went
by, and two extra by way of lagni-
appe, as they say in New Orleans,
and then in the spring of 2004 the
Science Fiction Writers of America
named its latest Grand Master,
and indeed the award went to the
writer of these very words.

I thus become the twenty-first of
the Grand Masters, and although I
am not the youngest to have been
chosen (not only Isaac Asimov but
also Heinlein and Williamson were
younger at the time of winning than
I am now), I am the first of the win-
ners who was bom in the 1930s, a
significant generational shift. An
award whose winners were, in the
beginning, exclusively drawn from
that gifted crew who created the
John W. Campbell Golden Age of
science fiction in the 1940s (Hein-
lein, Williamson, Simak, de Camp,
Leiber), has begim to pass to the in-
novative figures that built on the
achievements of those titans to cre-
ate the SF of our own day.

Since the mles of the award stip-

ulate that it can be given only to
living writers, the pool of eligible
Golden Age authors eventually
was used up, as Lester del Rey, Al-
fred Bester, A.E. van Vogt, and Hal
Clement joined the ones I’ve men-
tioned alwve. (Theodore Sturgeon
and L. Ron Hubbard, two other
conspicuous figures of the Camp-
bell era, did not five long enough to
be named.) Then came a group of
writers who established their
cl aims to the Grand Master trophy
in the period immediately following
World War H: Ray Bradbmy, Arthur
C. Clarke, Jack Vance, Philip Jos6
Farmer, Damon Knight, Frederik
Pohl, and Poul Anderson. More re-
cently, two writers who came to
prominence a little later than that
group joined the roster: Brian Ald-
iss and Ursula Le Guin, both of
them a few years older than I am.
And now it is my turn. Though my
own writing career goes back to the
middle of the 1950s, I didn’t hit my
full stride as a writer until 1966 or
so, which makes me part of the
Aldiss-Le Guin group rather than
of the Knight-Farmer-Anderson-
Pohl contingent. And within the
next few years we will see winners
drawn from the imposing pool of
writers who entered the field in the
last thirty years, as the great gen-
erational wheel keeps turning.

And how do you feel, Mr. Silver-
berg, about winning this majestic
awards

On the most obvious level, I feel
terrific about it. I regard it as con-
firming that I did actually succeed
in what I set out to do many decades
ago: to write science fiction that
would be as important to other
readers as the science fiction of the
writers Fve listed above was to me
in my own formative years. Since
I’ve put in half a century of hard

10

Robert Silverberg

Asimov's

work at that goal, Fm not going
even to make a pretense of modesty
here: I think that much of what I
wrote over those decades was pretty
damned good, and the fact that Fve
now received the Grand Master
award indicates that Fm not the
only one who feels that way.

But — ^but — there is this genera-
tional issue —

The eerie thing for me, because I
am the first Grand Master who was
bom in the 1930s, is that I find my-
self swept up into a pantheon popu-
lated almost entirely by writers
whose work I read with awe and
reverence when I was twelve and
thirteen and fifteen years old. Fm
talking primarily about Heinlein
and Asimov and van Vogt, about
Vance and Leiber and Anderson,
about de Camp and Bradbury and
Clarke and Williamson, about —
well, just about the whole bunch of

them, other than Aldiss and Le
Guin. (Fine writers that those two
are, they began their writing ca-
reers after I had already become an
adult, and I can’t look upon them in
quite the same way as I do the idols
of my childhood and adolescence.)

My shiny new trophy tells me
that I am now regarded as the peer
of all those people. But somewhere
within me is what remains of my
inner adolescent self, who warns
me to walk humbly among them,
making the proper gestures of re-
spect, and remembering to speak
softly and say “Yes, sir” when spo-
ken to. There’s something to that. A
Grand Master I may indeed be,
now, but in the company of Robert
A. Heinlein and Jack Williamson
and L. Sprague de Camp and Fred-
erik Pohl and CHfibrd D. Simak Fm
always going to feel like the new
kid on the block. O

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Please direct all changes of address
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1 1

Reflections: Grand Masters, the Sequel

James Patrick Kelly

On [he Ket

AFRAID OFTHEDARKNET

morals

S ay yo\ir kid sister drops by for a
visit. She lives on the Left Coast
and has driven clear across the
country to your place on the
Right Coast. To keep herself from
f alling asleep on the tedious stretch-
es of 1-80, she has brought along
some of her CD collection. Natural-
ly, you’re interested in what she’s
listening to these days and, as you
idly flip the pages of her CD binder,
you notice that she owns Herbie
Hancock’s <http:/ / www.herbie
ha.ncock.com> classic Head Hunters.
You yoiirself bought that album on
vinyl back in ’74, but your ex-girl-
friend sat on it during a wild Hal-
loween party in ’81. You have a CD
burner on yoiu" computer, and yoiu”
sister is amenable, so you make
yourself a copy.

Is that wrong? What if it actually
was yoiu* girlfriend’s record? What if
you never owned the album your-
self but you’ve just recently discov-
ered Herbie’s ftink years?

Say you bought a membership to
Con Jose <http: / / www.fanac.
org I conjose>, the 2002 World Sci-
ence Fiction Convention <http:/ /
www.worldcon.org> and you want-
ed to cast an informed vote for the
Hugo Award <http:/ /worldcon.
org / hugos.html>, so of course you
read Ted Chiang’s <http:/ /www.
fantasticmetropolis.com / show.html
?iw,chiang,l> memorable Hell Is

the Absence of God <http: / /
www.fictionwise.com / ebooks ! Ebook
4145.htm>. But you couldn’t man-
age to roimd up a copy of Starlight
3 <http: I / nielsenhayden.com /
starlights. html>, where it originally
appeared. Not to worry; that sum-
mer you learned that Mctionwise
<http:/ / www.fictionwise.com> was
running a promotion that allowed
you to download Ted’s story free for
a limited time. You did and you
loved it so much that you voted for
it and — hallelujah! — it won. As a
matter of fact, you were so im-
pressed that you went out and
bought a copy of Ted’s collection.
Stories of Your Life and Others
<http: II www.infinityplus.co.uk ! non
fiction I storiesofyour.htm>.

Now back to your sister, whose
Herbie Hancock album you just
copied. She has never read any of
Ted’s stuff and naturally you’d like
to educate her about the cutting
edge of SF and so you offer to lend
her your book. She declines because
she remembers how snippy you got
when she misplaced your auto-
graphed first edition copy of Fire
Watch by Connie Willis <http:
/ ! www.scifan.com ! writers ! ww !
WillisConnie.asp> which would be
worth well north of two hundred
dollars if either of you could put
your hands on it. Anyway, you tell
her that at the very least she can
download the free Fictionwise file
of “Hell Is the Absence of God” onto

12

Asimov's

her Palm Tungsten. Except the
promotion is long since over and
now Fiction wise is charging $1.25
for the story.

Is that wrong? What if you lend
her your own Palm Tungsten to
read it on? Or if you Xeroxed the
story from your own personal copy
of the book and gave it to her?

Just for the record, I don’t have a
sister.

DRM

Some people think that the an-
swer to all of these questions is
Digital Rights Management or
DRM <http:/ 1 en.wikipedia.org I
wiki / Digital _rightsjnaTiageTnent>.
Basically DRM seeks to use a tech-
nological stick — ^hardware or soft-
ware — to enforce copyright. It’s
DRM that prevents you from mak-
ing backup copies of your collection
of special extended Lord of the
Rings <http:l / www.lordofthe
rings. net> DVDs. But what is con-
venient for Peter Jackson <http:
/ / www.lordoftherings.net ! film / film
makers I fi _pjack.html> can be
damned inconvenient for you. So be
sure to wash your hands before you
pick up that fragile optical disc!

In 1998 Congress passed the
controversial Digital Millennium
Copyright Act or DMCA <http:
/ / www.copyright.gov / legislation /
dmca.pdf>. The intent of this law
is to provide new protection for
content creators in the face of tech-
nologies that are eroding copy-
right. Content creators? You know,
the folk formerly known as artists,
like Steven Spielberg <http:
/ / www.scruffles.net / spielberg> and
Outkast <http:/ / www.outkast.
com> and me <www.jimkelly.net>.
Among other things, ^e law makes

it illegal to disable DRM encryption:
The DMCA mandates, “No person
shall manufacture, import, offer to
the public, provide, or otherwise
traffic in any technology, product,
service, device, component, or part
thereof, that is primarily designed
or produced for the purpose of cir-
cumventing a technological mea-
sure that effectively controls access
to a work protected under this title.”
If you think about it, this is like
passing a law against using your
VCR to tape that episode of Star
Trek Enterprise <http:/ /www.
startrek.com ! startrek / view! series
/ ENTI index.html> you’re going to
miss while you’re away on vacation.
Worse, it makes a criminal of any-
one who even dares to create the
digital equivalent of a VCR, even if
it is never used to copy anything.

In case you’re wondering, DRM
has long since arrived in ebook pub-
lishing. All the major ebook readers
have formats that use encryption to
prevent copying. All the commercial
ebook publishers have recourse to
these secure formats, at least for
some titles. So hack William Gib-
son <http: / / WWW. williamgibson
books.com> at your peril!

You may rec^l in the last install-
ment I called your attention to a
talk about ebooks given by our own
Cory Doctorow <http:l / www.
craphound.com>, a frequent con-
tributor to these pages. Cory’s day
job is with the Electronic Free-
dom Foundation <http:/ /www.
eff.org>, the watchdog organization
that advocates on behalf of fiee ex-
pression in the digital age. As an
EFF spokesperson, Cory has been a
critic of DRMthink for some time
now. Weigh his reasoning by click-
ing over to a speech <http: / / www.
dashes.com /anil / stuff / doctorow -
drm-ms.html> he gave to the Micro-

On the Net: Afraid of the Darknet

13

February 2005

soft Research Group last June. He
makes several arguments, i.e.: that
DRM systems don’t work; they’re
bad for society, they’re bad for busi-
ness; and they’re bad for artists.

Now since I happen to be an artist
. . . er . . . content creator, this last
point compels my attention. Are
DRM schemes hmting my career? I
suppose the answer depends on how
one defines a career. Is my career
the business model though which I
earn the princely sums (not!) that I
am paid to commit prose in public?
Is my career the collection of aU the
sentences I have ever typed that
have gone on to be published, either
in ink or in digits, even if they are
now out of print? Is it the size of my
readership, even if many of you
have just stumbled across my stuff
here in the pages oi Asimov’s^ Or is
it my reputation among readers
who remember my work and would
look for more Kelly stories if they
weren’t too hard to acquire?

The way I see it, readers and rep
are what really matter to a writer.
Dollars should follow from a satis-
fied readership, although exactly
how this happens in these times of
technologic^ and economic innova-
tion is not immediately apparent,
alas. I do believe that the net has
irretrievably compromised twenti-
eth-century notions of intellectual
property and that no amount of
DRM shenanigans is going to turn
back the copyright clock. Or as Coiy
puts it: “Technology that disrupts
copyright does so b^use it simpli-
fies and cheapens creation, repro-
duction and distribution. The exist-
ing cop 3 rright businesses exploit
inefficiencies in the old production,
reproduction and distribution sys-
tem, and theyll be weakened by the
new technology. But new technolo-
gy always gives us more art with a

wider reach: that’s what tech is
for.”

darknet

But you don’t just have to take
the word of a couple of tech-struck
science fiction guys that DRM is
doomed and copyright must be re-
formed. In 2002 four computer sci-
entists working for Microsoft
<http:/ / www.microsoft.com>, Pe-
ter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus
Peinado, and Bryan Willman, pub-
lished a research paper entitled
‘^The Darknet and the Future
of Content Distribution” <http:
/ / msll.mit.edu / ESDlO/docs Idark
net5.pdf>. What they call the dark-
net is the entire “collection of net-
works and technologies used to
share digital content.” That is to
say, if you nip over to the Usenet’s
alt.binaries.ebook newsgroup, you
are in the heart of the darknet.
And despite the settlement of the
lawsuit <http:/ I www. authors
lawyer.com/c-ellison.shtml> be-
tween Harlan Ellison <http: / /
harlanellison.com> and AOL
<http:/ / www.aol.com>, access to
copyright-busting newsgroups and
websites is still quick and easy. But
the darknet extends beyond file-
sharing on the World Wide Web. If
you and your h 3 q)othetical sister
exchange Herbie Hancock and Ted
Chiang files, you are also part of
the darknet. And if you subscribe
to Consumer Reports Online
<http:/ / www.consumerreports.org>
and then share your password
with your mom so that she can
check out the best new laptops, you
have both gone over to the dar^et.

While this paper can be some-
times thick going for the lay surfer,
it is well worth the effort, if only so

14

James Patrick Kelly

Asimov's

that you can understand why these
particular Microsofties are so pes-
simistic that anything can be done
to halt the spread of the darknet.
(Note that this paper presents the
opinions of the four authors only,
and is not the official position of
Microsoft.) In the last section of the
paper they consider the challenges
of doing business in the very near
future: . in many markets, the

darknet will be a competitor to le-
gal commerce. From the point of
view of economic theory, this has
profound implications for business
strategy: for example, increased se-
curity (e.g., stronger DRM sys-
tems) may act as a disincentive to
legal commerce. Consider an MP3
file sold on a web site: this costs
money, but the purchased object is
as useful as a version acquired
from the darknet. However, a se-
curely DRM-wrapped song is
strictly less attractive: although
the industry is striving for flexible
licensing rules, customers will be
restricted in their actions if the
system is to provide meaningful se-
curity. This means that a vendor
will probably make more money by
selling unprotected objects than
protected objects. In short, if you
are competing with the darknet,
you must compete on the darknet’s
own terms: that is convenience and
low cost rather than additional se-
cmity.

exit

So what happens to copyright if
DRM fails? Don’t ask me! Better
minds than mine have yet to map
out a future that is acceptable to
artists, consumers, and business
interests. However, I can point to
one route to the futiu'e of publish-

ing that I have chosen for at least
part of the Kelly oeuvre.

The Creative Commons <http:
/ ! creativecommons.org> move-
ment offers a way for artists to
make their works freely available
to the world without giving up
ownership. It seeks a middle path
between full cop3night — all rights
reserved — and the public domain.
The files you can download from my
site — stories, MP3 files of audio-
books, and the archive of this col-
umn, for example — are offered for
the free use of anyone imder one of
the many Creative Commons Li-
censes. My license imposes just
three conditions: you must credit
me as author, you must not use the
works for commercial purposes,
and you must not alter, transform,
or build upon the works.

If you’re curious about the quality
of Creative Commons works, here
are just a few websites to check
out. Common Content <http:/ /
www.commoncontent.org> should
probably be your first stop; it’s a
general catalog of works licensed
under Creative Commons. Open-
photomet <http:/ 1 openphoto.net>
features himdreds of stock photos,
while MIT OpenCourseWare
<http: / / ocw. mit.edu / index.html>
offers seven himdred coiurses from
thirty-three academic disciplines
and all five of MIT’s schools. The
Prelinger Archives <http:/ Iwww.
prelinger.com> is a collection of
“ephemeral” (advertising, education-
al, industrial, and amateur) films.

I certainly haven’t offered every-
thing I’ve written under the Cre-
ative Commons hcense and I’m not
advocating this path for everyone.
But I sleep better at night knowing
that anyone, anywhere who wants
to can read me.

Who’s afraid of the darknet? O

On the Net; Afraid of the Darknet

15

THE

lED HOURS
OF SODOM

Jim Grimsley

Jim Grimsley is currently at work on a novel that's a
sequel to his story "Into Greenwood" (September
2001), and another novel thafs mainstream. In his
remarkable new tale, the author borrows from the
motifs of the Marquis de Sade to explore the kinds
of tedium a person may face when he can live for at
least two or three hundred years.

A word of warning: There are scenes in this story that may be disturbing to some.

Figg and Sade met each other over drinks in a trendy place on top of
Marmigon, at a table in the lushest part of the garden, a riot of blossom
and verdant fohage. The restaurant had a sarsa flower with its own bloom
slave as the centerpiece of the garden, which was in turn the central fix-
ture of the restaurant’s main dining room. Figg foimd himself watching
the bloom slave, a pretty girl of sixteen or so, throughout the course of the
dinner. She curled like a lotus at the foot of the flower, stroking its lower
leaves now and then. The Prudent Greenhouse served many cuisines, a
menu of choices that changed, famously, each evening. The restaiirant was
rumored to employ nearly a thousand chefs. Tonight’s theme was Post-
Transit Mandarin cuisine, another example, Figg thought, of the essential
sterility of Hormling culture, borrowing from the deep past.

This sense of anachronism was perfect for a dinner with Sade, who had
recently renamed himself after a figure of pre-Transit history, a famous
marquis of a portion of Old Earth called France. He explained this to Figg
over a martini the color of a blue sky in a summer evening, a rich aqua,
almost a turquoise, but deeper and darker, swirled with violet. “A marqms
was a rank something like Orminy,” said Sade. “This one was notable for
his vices and his need to write about them.”

“I know who he is. Why can’t you fix your star on a more recent exam-
ple of decadence?” Figg petted the spider on his own head, named Pene-

16

Asimov's

lope, who preened and spread herself toward his hand, purring like a cat.
“Or have you run through all those? And you’re clear back to ei^teenth
century France?”

“So I take it you must know something about his story.” Sade was pow-
dering himself with some sort of pleasm^inducing chemical; something
called karma and another called flush were all the rage at the time.

Figg watched with a trace of hunger and continue to coddle Penelope.
“Yes.”

“That expensive brain of yours,” Sade said, pinching a bit more powder
flnm another container and smearing it onto the back of his hand. “Cross
referenced with every sort of nonsense.”

“Have you any acquaintance with his writings?” Figg asked dryly. “He
is your namesake. He’s thoroughly unpleasant.”

“You know I haven’t studied pre-Transit writers. You know I haven’t
studied writers at all. But Fm sure you have.”

“Not personally. But Fve got a good database of pre-read books; I know
a good bit about him. Novels like Justine. And the famously lost 120 Days
of Sodom.”

“Lost?”

“Yes. The manuscript was lost for several decades. This place France
was having a revolution and Sade was in prison, where he wrote the
book. He lost the manuscript while being moved from one prison to an-
other. No great loss if it had never been found at all, according to most
people.”

Sade ogled the bloom slave, bound to the sarsa plant by long, white ten-
drils. The plant had been eating her for months. !^gg liked the restaimant
but feared it was becoming outr4, the result of a fame mostly due to the
fragile beauty of the sarsa slave, whose name was Purity. She was re-
cumbent now on a bed of moss that looked as if it had been combed; she
had blonde hair and cocoa skin, her long, bony limbs folded beneath her
as she rested. Information about Purity was readily available on the Pru-
dent Greenhouse menu, a thin, almost transparent tablet which Figg
read with some amusement. Purity had traveled here from the Breeder
Planet, as had the sarsa-flower. The Breeders had created the symbiosis
in the first place; the sarsa fed on its human slave in such a way that it
numbed the slave to any idea of any other life. Purity had, at some point,
for some reason, contracted away her freedom to berome plant food. Her
sad story as an orphan on the most inhospitable of Hormling worlds was
another commodity offered in the menu, and one could wholly believe in
her sadness since here she was, draped with roots, or something much
like roots, slowly digesting her.

“We have to do something for your birthday,” said Sade. “And I want
people to pay attention to my new name.”

“No, we don’t have to do something for my birthday,” said Figg. “We’d all
be doing me a favor by ignoring it.”

“But Fve never had a fiiend who lived to be three htmdred.” Sade was
making a perfect pout of his lower lip, a mockery of naive innocence.
“Please, for me. Fve so wanted to give a party for the longest time, and
3 rou’re the only significant anniversary I know.”

The 1 20 Hours of Sodom

17

February 2005

Sade evidenced something of a distaste for Figg’s spider, particularly
when she ran so nimbly out of Figg’s hairdo, down his neck and arm to
eat from the tray of live insects he had ordered for her. Sade stared at
Penelope as if afraid she might jump. The spider’s body spanned about
the size of Figg’s hand, partly organic and partly mechanical, effectively
immortal, since none of its cellular or regulatory functions were particu-
larly difficult to duplicate. Immortality for lower order life forms had
proven relatively easy for Hormling me^cology. Penelope the spider was
a family heirloom, one of the older arachnoborgs in existence, nearly nine
himdred years, an age of which Figg, with all his money and all his con-
nections, could only dream.

“You need a pet,” Figg said. “Something to keep you busy, other than
yoiu' social life, I mean. You need something that depends on you.”

“Like that?” Sade indicated Penelope, whose back was currently cov-
ered with emerald green fur the exact shade of Figg’s processor vest.
Penelope was stooped over her prey in an orgy of consumption, her tho-
rax shivering with delight, mouth ^ed on some kind of tropical beetle.

“Don’t be rude to my spider, please.”

“I don’t need a pet that lives in my hair.”

“In my scalp, artually. She buries her legs in my scalp. All eight.”

Sade, the famously perverse child of strange pleasures, trembled with
disgust, a move that appeared much like Penelope’s ecstasies of suck.

Figg explained further. “I have a set of low-grade pleasure sockets the
shape of the ends of her legs embedded in my scalp. Her legs are some
kind of light metal, with these hairy sort of tendrils at the end. She in-
serts them into my skull and I get a constant rush of pleasure.”

“She stabs you with those needles at the end of her legs? Those?”

“She doesn’t stab me. She has transportable sockets on the tips for
when she wants to sit on my arm or my shoulder.”

“It comes to the same thing. You have a huge spider riding you and you
think that’s what I need, as a au^ for my essential boredom.”

“I wouldn’t have gone so far as to accuse you of essential boredom.”

“I assure you that I am mdeed filled with ennui.” Sade sighed. “But I
have an idea for your party.”

“Plans for which I persist in wishing you would abandon altogether.”

“But I won’t, and you know it. In fact, you like to protest about your
party, but you’d be heartbroken if I stopped working on it.”

Figg felt sincerely that this was far from the case, while at the same
time he realized that only a complete ruptime with Sade would stop the
party from happening. Sade, vmder his former name, had given occasion-
al parties that were famous throughout Marmigon, and Marmigon was
the most important power center of Senal; if Sade felt the need to give a
party, it might be dangerous to thwart him.

“Besides, I have an idea for the most marvelous centerpiece. Something
truly new.”

“There is nothing truly new.”

“WeU, then, with aU the appearances and appurtenances of new. Some-
thing virtually new.”

Penelope, sated with bug for the moment, pricked her legs into Figg’s

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forearm and climg there. Her legs were indeed fitted with sockets that in-
serted themselves into any part of his skin on which the spider nested.
He felt the undercurrent of happiness and pleasure from her touch on his
arm as a servant wiped off the tiny beads of blood with a handkerchief.
Figg adjusted the sensation of Penelope to a more conversational level.
He watched Sade for signs of further dkcomfort and asked, finally, “What
are you planning? You might as well tell me.”

“My proxies have a lead on a licensed suicide.”

“How licensed?”

“Fully. Any death, any where, no conditions.”

“Who?”

Sade smiled. “Does it matter? From what I hear, she’s exquisite.”

“She?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “I know you’d prefer a boy but I couldn’t find one, not
licensed like this one.”

Figg was watching Purity again. She was wrapped around a stedk of
the sarsa flower, its lower leaves draped lovingly over her dark skin. Pu-
rity was eating well herself but still losing weight. She might last as long
as another year, maybe, before she died, before the flower drew her com-
pletely into its basal leaves in order to finish digesting her. Purity, or who-
ever she had been, had willed this onto herself probably for one of the
eternal reasons for such a sacrifice, to rescue her family from poverty, be-
cause of a fetish, or out of sheer depression and self-destructiveness. The
spectacle of public death fascinated Figg. As Sade knew.

The conversation continued as they discussed guests for the party and
Figg watched Purity. Penelope dug into Figg’s arm and drew blood that
his servants wiped away wi^ towels. Figg never bled to excess, only for
show. At such moments he recalled that the spider was eating him, too.
After a while Penelope grew tired of the game, or lost her appetite, and
retreated to her permanent nodes in Figg’s scalp. Sade and Figg contin-
ued to plan the birthday party. The girl with the license to kill herself
would ^1 or be killed at the end of the party, in front of the guests. Even
though public suicide was becoming more common, no one had yet used it
as a theme for a private party. When news of this got around, Sade would
score a society first for Marmigon, and he knew it and looked very
pleased with himself.

The fiill and complete elaboration of a civilization requires that all its
impulses, from darkest to hghtest, be expressed in some fashion. But in
the case of extreme impulses, such as those Sade ei^joyed, the pleasiuros
must necessarily be shared only by a few. This was not an option but
rather a requirement. Such was Sade’s nature, for instance, that, should
many people have become like him, he would have been forced to become
like someone else, even more extreme. He could not stand among the
commonality. Much like his namesake, Figg thought.

The girl had given her name as Cherry Ann on the legal documents,
which Figg obtained for review with his own fleet of barristers. Whatever
quahns he had about the kind of party Sade was planning, he was aware
of the danger of exposing himself on the legal front. His family agents

20

Jim Grimsiey

Asimov's

traced Cherry’s registered identity back to its origin, the child of a third-
tier plm-al marriage, the members of which likely wanted to get rid of her;
she had grown up in the Reeks of B4yoton, She was selling her death, not
herself; there was no thought of indenture. Her right to die at a time of
her own choosing was a long-standing legal principle. Her right to profit
fix)m the sale of her death she had establish^ herself, with the help of a
barrister firm of which Figg had never heard.

Figg felt apprehensive after his lawyers confirmed that the transaction
was entirely in order, as if he feared he should force Sade to call off the
party anyway, but in the end he decided to do nothing. Due to the fame of
Figg’s family and Sade’s own notoriety, word of the birthday spread. “Figg
Tims Three Hundred, Who Could TeU?” “Sade Fetes Figg With Cherry Of
Death.” Headlines in the tabloids, photographs and holographs in all the
cheapest and sleaziest panes.

While plans for the party unfolded, Figg ate a number of meals at the
Prudent Greenhouse, watching Purity diminish amidst the flash of pho-
to-mites and mini-cams. The news of the suicide birthday party and
Figg’s attendance at the Prudent Greenhouse focused even more atten-
tion on the restaurant, and Purit/s slow starvation was a foretaste of
Cherry’s end. Along with Figg and Sade, other celebrities flocked to eat at
the Greenhouse, some of them hoping to score an invitation to the par-
ty — stars like Rudy Roloway and Luscious Pnde, superstar cinema actors
freshly married for the third time. Figg enjoyed the commotion they
caused, rushing into the restaurant amidst the swirl of fly-cams and spy-
cams, glee-cams and try-cams.

Figg’s birthday was the fifteenth of Ardent, and on a full moon, as it
happened. He met Cherry, at his own insistence, near the first of the
month, with time to spare to call the whole thing off.

She sat in his dark-sapphire-blue room slumped in a chair with a head-
set feeding something, probably music, into her skull. Headsets were for
people who could not afford or endure a full biological link to the Horm-
ling data mass, commonly ceilled the Surround; this link shaped so much
of the life of Senal. She touched the hardware defiantly once she saw him
and removed it, her lips set into a hostile sneer. Figg thanked her for com-
ing and offered her a coffee, or a drink, or a narcotic. She asked for a glass
of water. He served it to her with his own hand.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Skip it.” She looked aroimd with a grudging edge of respect. “You have
a lot of room here.”

“You know who I am?”

She nodded, refusing to look at him. She was wearing a lot of cheap
makeup, but she had t^en care in applying it. The effect was pleasant
but too vivid, especially the impossibly huge eyelashes which were the
fashion for both boys and girls at the time. Her clothes were of a pretty
good quality, probably new. She had an agent taking c£ire of her imtil the
party, one who had obviously done some work on her appearance.

“Fd like you to be a bit more responsive,” Figg said.

She glared at him. “Sure. Fine. You’re the guy who’s having the party.”

“Fm the one having the birthday.”

The 1 20 Hours of Sodom

21

February 2005

“That’s what I said.” Now she glared at the floor and shoved her fists
into the vest she was wearing, an imitation of a processor vest, bronze
and black.

“Do you have any idea why I want to talk to you?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe you’re rehgious.”

“Not particularly. I have been, in my time, but at the moment, no.”

She shrugged again, her thin brown arms rising and falling.

“I want to know why you want to do this,” Figg said.

She was staring at the floor more fixedly now, and her shoulders had
set into a stubborn line of tension. “Maybe Fm religious.”

“Are you?”

Her two knees came together in a point. Some other expression was try-
ing to break through her sullen veneer. She looked hopelessly young.
“Sure. And maybe I want to go in a big way. You know? This is my chance.”

“Excuse me?”

She looked him in the eye, something defiant and hard at the center of
her gaze. Her soft, high-pitched voice grew steely. “What does it matter to
you? Fm legal. I convinced a judge to give me the papers. What does it
matter to you anyway, as long as you have your party?”

Up till then Penelope had been qmetly sleeping, but now she awakened
and rose out of Figg’s hair. Cherry shrieked and drew back in her chair,
stood up from it and retreated a few steps.

“It’s ^1 right,” Figg said. “This is my pet.”

She was trembling and refiised to come closer, watching Penelope creep
on delicate legs down Figg’s chest. “You let it walk on you.”

“Her. She. Penelope is a female spider. She’s mostly machine and she’s
very old. She’s my pet and my bodyguard.”

“What do you ne^ a bodyguard for? I won’t hurt you.”

“I always keep Penelope with me. Fm sorry she startled you.”

“She won’t crawl on me, will she?”

“No. I won’t let her.” \\^ich was true, as long as Figg kept control of
Penelope and Cherry presented no threat. Figg found himself flushed, al-
most excited, at Cherry’s fear. He sat there, breathing deeply. “Fm legally
obliged to make sure you’re agreeing to do this of your own accord.”

“To kill m3rself, you mean.”

“Yes.”

She sat in the chair again. His words apparently angered her a bit, and
she rubbed her arms with her hands impatiently. “So. Okay, sure, it’s vol-
imtaiy. I know what Fm doing.”

“Fm very serious. Cherry Ann, or whatever your name is. If you don’t
convince me you sincerely want this, I won’t go through with it.”

Her jaw took on that stubborn, set look that Figg remembered well
from the early years of his own daughters, a very long time ago, a very old
memory. But there was a bleakness in Cherry, an emptiness. She said, “I
don’t actually have to convince you of anything. You’re not really the cus-
tomer, are you?”

“Sade won’t have the party if I insist he cancel it.” Figg attempted to
put this across in a convincing way and hoped the girl had not met Sade.
“Tell me why you want to die.”

22

Jim Grimsley

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February 2005

She sharpened her eyes on Figg and stared. Even he began to feel \m-
comfortable. Drawing in the short, impatient breath of an adolescent irri-
tated with an elder, she slumped in the chair, resigning herself “I’m a
third child of an illegal. I have negative status, my whole family does. But
I have a brother. I can sell my death for my brother and buy him status
and he can have a start.” She spoke fiercely and intensely.

“So you are rehgious,” Figg said. Now that he knew her story, he was at-
tempting to harden his heart toward her, and largely succeeding. “The
way of sacrifice. Brief hfe. All that.”

“Fm not a Quick Flame person.”

“You soimd like one.”

“I feel extra,” she said, and Figg heard a true piece of sadness in her
voice. Immediately she grew cold again. “I don’t want to explain this to
you. I already talked to the doctor, and to more doctors, till Fm sick of it. A
person has a right to make this choice. It’s the law.”

Figg studied her a long, still moment. He felt himself staring at the
young, moist glow of her skin. “You’ve signed some papers that entitle
Sade to give you a very imcomfortable death.”

“Yes. So?”

“Why?”

She flushed, and spoke into her cupped palms. She had drawn her body
into a knot in the chair, knees under her chin, arms aroimd her knees.
“Like I said, I want to go in a big way.”

“So you want this to make you famous.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “You’ve been famous all your hfe.”

“Weh,” Figg said, “not quite.”

“You’re from a famous family. Your mother was some kind of famous
something.”

“Yes,” he said, as dryly as possible. “Indeed she was. And my father was-
n’t bad in that department, either.”

“Why shouldn’t I go out like Fm somebody?” she asked, and Figg was
pretty sure she was talking to someone other than him, somebody not
present except in her mind. “Why shouldn’t I, since I have the chance?”

He raised his arm and let Penelope scamper toward his head. Rising
out of the chair, he wished for a drink, and pretty soon a servant brought
one, along with more water for the girl. One of the Hildas carrying drinks
on a silver tray. The girl gaped like she had never seen a Hilda before, and
maybe she hadn’t.

Only a day later a card arrived fi-om Sade, with a message requesting
Figg to meet him that evening for dinner, something urgent. Sade had
borrowed Figg’s favorite pre-read-copy of The 120 Days of Sodom; the
reading was a particularly good one recorded by one of Figg’s favorite pre-
readers, Ohvah Toss, dead for a few miUennia but with much of her mem-
ory still floating around in the immense Hormling data mass. Toss had
read a vast library of texts and had made a fortime on her sensitive pre-
readings.

Sade handed back the data set to Figg. “The book has given me some
ideas for the party.”

24

Jim Grimsiey

Asimov's

He laid out his plan very simply. He wanted to title the whole event
“The 120 Hours of Sodom.” The party would begin five days before Figg’s
birthday. Sade wanted to enjoy the party rather than perform in it, but he
could easily hire all the sadists and masochists he needed. He would
arrange to have Cherry Ann injected with a slow-acting neurotoxin that
would be timed to kill her somewhere near the end of the fourth day. She
would be on display the whole time, like the sarsa-flower-slave. She
woxild take the poison in pubhc.

Knowing Sade as Figg did, the plan appeared remarkable for its re-
straint. Figg had expected a much more gruesome end for Cherry, as al-
lowed for in the contract. He foimd himself reheved to a degree that was
surprising; he foimd himself, in fact, picturing the cherubic expression on
Cherry’s face at the moment in which he had first seen her, before she
knew someone was watching, when she was simply sitting in the chair in
his private study waiting for him to enter.

Sade was eating his chilled soup. He looked hardly older than Cherry
himself to the untrained eye, a tall, slender man, with nothing like the
corpulence of his namesake; but Figg could detect the slight shine of
Sade’s regenerated skin, the hint of puffiness in the comers of the eyes
which even the best tissue regression speciahsts foimd hard to avoid a^r
a certain number of treatments. The backs of his hands had a grainy look.
What was more important, however, was the expression on his face,
which could never have been described as young or fresh. Cherry’s face
had the moistness of a freshly opened blossom. There she was, in fact,
spread out on panes and films over the unused part of the table. Cherry
posing in several gowns, suits, and other costumes, so that Sade could
choose what she would wear during the event. Some of her more obvious
physical defects, including her rather short waist and broad hips, were
being correctly surgically, and the pictures reflected the lines of the new
Cherry, the one who would soon emerge from her cocoon. Sade touched
the picWes with a delicacy that made his desire obvious.

“She looks like Wen.”

“Not really,” Figg said, although in fact it was tme. Especially after the
surgery.

“Do you think I’m obsessed?”

“Why would I think that?”

“I changed my name because of Wen,” said Sade. “She nearly ruined me.”

“This is a different girl,” Figg said. He felt Penelope move restlessly on
his scalp, and willed her to quiet herself For once, she obeyed. No ne^ to
startle Sade at such a moment.

“Fm too old for these kinds of feelings.” His voice was somber and vmaf-
fected.

“Now you know how I feel,” Figg answered. “After all, Fm the one who’s
tinning three hundred.”

But Sade hardly appeared to hear the words at all. He was turning a bit
of bread between his fingers, looking at it as if he could see into the cellu-
lar structure, and it was possible that he could, of course, with the kind of
money he could spend on implants and adaptations. At the moment, he
wore the expression of a person who had seen, perhaps, too much.

The 1 20 Hours of Sodom

25

February 2005

He had lost his principal wife, Wen, several years ago, and this was the
cause of his name-change from Kennick to Sade. Neither Kennick nor
Sade were part of his legal name, of course; like most members of the
Orminy, Sade kept his true names confidential, though he was known to
be a member of House Jimartelate. When known as Kennick, he had been
a famously dissolute member of the top levels of Beyoton political society
who met Wen during one of his house parties. Their marriage had lasted
only a decade. By all accounts he had cared for her in a genuine way,
though he had hardly sheltered her. Her suicide and Kennick’s subse-
quent grief had made headlines in many parts of Senal; the image of Ken-
nick as a grieving husband had done considerable damage to his reputa-
tion as a decadent socialite, and therefore when he came to his senses he
had vmdergone an identity modification, not his first, in order to rehabil-
itate himself He had taken the new name, Sade, and had paid the enor-
mous sum needed to replace his old identity with his new in much of the
Hormling data mass, including, whenever possible, in the memories of his
friends and acquaintances. The new name-package came with enough
references to the original Marquis de Sade that even the ignorant imder-
stood the reference, and interested parties could follow the thread to fur-
ther information on the pre-Transit figure of scandal. Whoever had sug-
gested the name to Kennick/Sade was a mystery; but certainly he had
many learned friends. The memory of Kennick had subsequently grown
dim, both in the pubhc record and among his fidends. This was a function
of the fact that Hor mlin g minds were nearly all linked together; a person
with sufficient resources, could do much to manipulate what others knew
or remembered about him.

Sade’s comeback remained incomplete, however; by hosting Bigg’s three
hundredth birthday party in such a spectacular fashion, he meant to re-
claim his place as one of the influential persons within the constantly
shifting politics of Marmigon, which was central to the politics of the Min-
istries and the rest of the Hormling trade network, even in these modem
days when the Mage had established a kind of hegemony over everyone.
Bigg’s family had built Marmi g on and maintained controlling interest in
its operation even centuries later; by being seen as Bigg’s intimate fidend,
Sade meant to re-establish his power base, and even to extend it.

“I can’t tell you how many designers and artists I’ve met with,” Sade
said. “Fm employing half of Marmigon on this party.”

“Did Marisol get you the rooms you wanted?”

“Do you think you wouldn’t already have heard if Marisol turned me
down?” He was smiling, reaching for his vied of happy powder. He checked
the top of Bigg’s head cautiously. “Where’s that spider of yours? It always
comes running down your arm when I dose myself.”

Penelope was deep in a sleep cycle, and Bigg reached up to stroke her
back gently. “She won’t bother you,” Fdgg said. “She’s asleep.”

“In a way, it will be a shame to kill her.” Sade signaled the waiter to the
table.

“My spider?”

“No. Cherry.” Sade ordered a brandy and the waiter flitted away. Sade
looked at Bigg almost mournfully, and Bigg wondered what the tabloids

26

Jim Grimsiey

Asimov's

woiild have made of this picture, the somber Sade contemplating the im-
phcations of his plan for virginal Cherry, doomed imder contract to die.

“You covild alwaj^ try to save her life,” Figg said.

“How can you be such an optimist at your age?” Sade asked, and shook
his head. “She’s determined to do this. And I’m determined to let her. It’s
just that regrets are always sweet, you know. A form of pain.” He smiled,
and Figg felt a chill.

The first day of the party came. Most of the guests had taken rooms in
Marmigon, in one of the hotel complexes that it contained, to be nearer
the two penthouse floors in which Sade’s party was to be held. Figg pos-
sessed, of course, his own permanent rooms there, and settled into them
for a stay of some da 3 rs.

On the news panes and filling the flatscreen entertainment programs
was information about the party, gossip about who had been invit^ and
who had been snubbed, as well as five footage of the various, and careful-
ly staged, arrivals of guests. For this first day of festivities, Figg had few
duties, other than to appear at the party very briefly later in the evening.
The least important guests had received firet-day invitations, since the
first day of the party was practically open to the public. News reports
were already gleefully engaged with Sade’s careful recreation of various
episodes of ^e Marquis’s grisly novel.

The 120 Days of Sodom, in its original French, told of a quartet of hb-
ertines who at the beginning of the tale have formed a kind of supper
club, devoting their considerable wealth to weekly dinners at which vari-
ous kinds of sexual perversion were explored. The Marquis, being a devo-
tee of symmetry, described in some detail the differing natimes of these
four banquets, held in regular sequence, at four different locations in the
city of Paris. The Marquis’s namesake, Sade of the present, had devoted
considerable resources to recreating these banquets through a mixture of
live performance, avatar, and holographic projection, and tours of these
four installations were held throughout the first day, culminating in a
magnificent period feast in the evening at which Figg would appear and
at which Cherry would be introduced.

Figg had toured the installations before they opened and foimd it all
too tedious. One room was full of a number of men buggering one anoth-
er; another was full of prostitutes in various poses of thrill and torment,
some of them in the midst of being mutilated and murdered. One room
was full of young maidens and the other full of monstrosities and freaks
of every kind. Actors portraying the Due de Blangis, the Bishop of X***,
Durcet, and the President de Cerval, the four redoubtable heroes of the
novel, wandered fix)m room to room in various states of imdress and ex-
citement. There were ghastly sounds and horrific smells fi:nm the rather
monstrous practices underway in all the rooms; Sade had spared no ex-
pense in his recreation, and Figg was impressed, to a degree. The specta-
cle was certain to excite a great deal of comment m the media and among
the intelligentsia.

Figg dressed carefully in a formal suit and neck-wrap, keeping his
processor vest but switching the color to formal black. He had a valet, one

The 1 20 Hours of Sodom

27

February 2005

of the Hermans, to help him with dressing; the Herman wrapped Figg’s
neck-piece for evening wear and adjusted his toe-boots to perfection. His
suit was throbbing with energy, pulsing with a deep, deep violet wave,
and the Herman adjusted the variance on the randomizer; sometimes the
pattern would be regular and sometimes it would not, the best choice for
a personal special effect of this type, in Figg’s opinion.

He groomed Penelope himself^ ac^usting her back-fur to a dark maroon,
close to black, and brushing it by hand till it looked soft and even. The
tips of her legs glowed softly, and a pattern of colors shifted on the siuface
of her multiple eyes. She burned a lot of energy during her grooming and
had to eat one of her captives, a small rodent, trapped in her web in Figg’s
office. Maybe she was supping from one of the chipmunks he had released
into the room a few days ago. The cocoon of web was quivering a bit, so
supper was fresh, at least. Figg watched with satisfaction, wondering
why this spectacle never bored him. One life was eating another. Life
must eat life, always, he thought. The way we will all eat Cherry tonight,
or begin to eat her.

He had a meeting with his press person, his attorney’s representative,
and his agent’s assistant, just before he descended from the Marmigon
penthouse to the floors of the party. He had been waiting for them in his
office with the cloud-windows, lool^g over a sea of cumulus undulations.
Very distant and very far below was a glimpse of an ocean, the Inokit,
somewhere in which was the Gate to Irion, the land of the Mage.

“Fve brought the last of the broadcast contracts,” said Costermonger,
his agent.

“Put them in the signatm^ tray and Fll get them stamped,” said Figg,
gesturing to his desk in the comer of the room, large and sparsely fur-
nished. Costermonger put the secure data-sticks into the signature ap-
penditure of the desk, a considerable walk past an exotic floating garden
that drifted throu^ the center of the office. Figg turned to Mistigan the
Attorney and Edelyne Harridan the Press Agent and asked, “Any news?”

They looked at one another, Mistigan and Harridan, and Mistigan an-
swered, “The young woman signed the final releases this morning.”

“Then ever^hing’s legal.”

“Yes. Certified by the Seventh Spherical Court of Appeals, all three
judges. Now binding. Barring any appeal of the contract, which can’t be
halted, of course. But this girl is serious. I don’t think she’ll change her
mind.”

Figg felt an oddly out-of-place lurch in the stomach at the news, un-
characteristically young of him. The trio of his experts were waiting for
his next question. He was about to be briefed on his entrance into the par-
ty. He would attend alone, of com*se, as it was his trademark to be alone,
accompanied only by a Hilda and a Herman and by his bodyguard Pene-
lope. Out the windows rolled the sea of atmosphere, purples, blues, steely
silvers. No one spoke while he collected his thoughts, and he found the
thoughts suspiciously hard to collect in light of the news that Cherry had
signed the final papers giving permission for her murder.

All three of Figg’s retainers were present in the flesh, and each repre-
sented a horde of other experts linked to one another and to their point

28

Jim Grimsley

Asimov's

person in various ways. At the prices Figg paid, he no longer dealt with
avatars or simulacra. There was always a quality difference with the real
thing, he found.

Penelope nested on his shoulder, and the Hilda and Hermem took up
their flank positions, their bodies making those odd, quiet whirring-hiss-
ing noises that marked their largely mechanical natures. Mistigan, Har-
ridan, and Costermonger took up the rear of the elevator; they would re-
main out of public view but would be available to Figg should he need
them during the evening.

His plan was to enter through one of the family passages escorted by
another la3rer of security, six guards plus a scout, so that by the time Figg
actually arrived at the party, he had a sizable entourage, and felt quite
able to face a crowd. A crowd of living extras had been hired to fill the
public space through which he would cross, dressed in a variety of styles,
highly fanciful versions of pre-Transit figures, including gladiators,
samurai, Tauzt Monks, and rather too many interpretations of seven-
teenth century France, a mostly mythical nation on a planet presmned to
be lost or dead to present-day Hormling. To this mix was added a niunber
of the curious, people who could bully or bribe their way into the event,
especially celebrities or would-be celebrities who had been snubbed in the
matter of an invitation to the party itself. A hubbub of voices filled the
space, lights of changing color positioned on Figg as he walked, flying and
land-based cameras, news personalities fix)m various media, a cluster of
middlewams belonging to some religious order. He could actually hear
the stream of some of it in his head, on his own internal feed. Here is Figg,
Scion of the Most Powerful Motherate of the Orminy, Oldest Son of House
Bemona-kakenet, Here He is at Three Hundred Years, One of the Very Ex-
tremely Richest, Owner of Marmigon, Estate in the Pomone of Tens of
Thousands of Acres, Old Bachelor of Eclectic Habits, Here He is Walking
to His Birth^y Party, and on and on.

Coverage of the rest of the party, the arrival of Nero Vorteme and the
members of the boy band Knee Meme, the incredible security which was
prelude to Mima Morgenate, pom heroine of the sex channels, strutting
out of her rattle-shaw carriage, flooded his head. He could see it with his
eyes and follow the internal channels he was receiving at the same time,
though he put the coverage in the background afi«r a while, the media
doublespe^ having begun to tire him. All was in readiness inside for
Figg’s own entrance. Sade’s face filled the cameras at several points,
watching a screen on which Figg’s progress through the courtyard was
being followed. Figg, watching this image of himself being watched, felt
himself and Sade both multiplied in all directions, the media reflecting
and reflecting again, stupidly and repetitiously but altogether thorough-
ly and with eveiy appearance of enthusiasm.

Hardigan the Press Agent had an arrangement with the press for Figg
to pass through the myriad reporters without anyone making an attempt
to interview him. Other people spoke on camera, but Figg was well
known to avoid this. Penelope had gone on alert and her presence, on
which all the cameras lovingly lingered, along with the glowering of the
security guards, encouraged a sense of decorum in the living reporters.

The 120 Hours of Sodom

29

February 2005

Marmigon legal AI were engaged in continuoiis real-time repeat-filing of
restraining orders and injimctions to hold the automated cameras and re-
porting drones in check. Added to these discouragements, the Uppermost
House Bemona-kakenet was known to be licensed for a certain number
of murders in any given year, and Figg had in the past spent some of his
share on reporters and photographers who bothered him here in Mar-
migon, where he was often to be foimd.

Glimpsing, to the side, the image of a tall, lanky man ripping the nipple
off of a prostitute, Figg passed unhiirriedly through the exhibits. Nipple
degradation was a favorite trope of the original Sade’s, along with other
kinds of vile death, lavished with uncommon cruelty on whatever women
were at hand, though men, and boys in particular, were not altogether
spared. The farther instaUation of male simulations and live performers
offered several examples of male-centered tortures, including one young
man being strangled at the same time as he was penetrated behind, his
dark skin flushed purple, the choke loosened a bit to let him breathe a bit,
then tightened more.

The crowd was an older bimch, the sort of people with the time to de-
velop tastes for the tableaux which surrounded them. Some of the spec-
tators were impassive, like Figg, while others were participating via de-
vice-links to hook into the psyches of some of the saists and masochists
who were performing. So that, for instance, at the moment of some par-
ticularly savage tortiire of the boy, a wave of response passed through the
crowd as all those linked to his mind felt the shudders of pain and plea-
sure along with him.

Figg’s goal was to appear imperturbed by his surroimdings and to con-
tinue to move more deeply into the rooms, toward a space where a large
crowd was being herded with an air of expectancy, down a star carpet for
celebrities, which Figg naturally followed along. There, beyond a small
cluster of the very famous and a large cluster of the less famous, on a
floating platform near a sizeable Eiss sculpture (from her Arch Period)
stood a chrysahs meant to contain Cherry. Cherry herself was awaiting
her entrance below these rooms, in another suite, preparing to be hfted
into the cluysalis and put on display in order for the networks to sell a bit
of advertising. At the end of the second or third commercial break follow-
ing Cherry’s appearance, depending on the moment-to-moment ratings,
Sade, in fiunt of all these people and the watching world, would poison her.

The dress that contained the poison, keyed to Cherry’s DNA and there-
fore perfectly safe for anyone else to handle, was on display, framed in
Eiss’s Arch Nineteen. The cloth gleamed and rippled with color. It was a
peculiar style of dress popular at the time, a floor-length shimmy with one
strap over one shoulder, this one designed by Oscartine and run up in one
of the ciurent radiant fabrics. The dress hung like a ripple of water, like a
drain of light down a pipe, while cameras of all kinds photographed it. Af-
ter too long a spell of this, the chrysalis opened and Cherry Ann appeared.

She was wearing nothing at all, her skin a gleaming cocoa color, so soft
the light appeared to caress it. Sade was walking toward her. Information
about the poison permeated the Svuroimd, along with bits about the de-
sign of the dress, and pre-Transit references to women being presented

30

Jim Grimsiey

Asimov's

with various kinds of poison gowns, none of which had anything to do
with the historical Marquis de Sade but all of which appealed to the edu-
cation snobs in the audience. Cherry spoke a poem that No had written
for the occasion, three lines in the classic pattern, very beautiful, imme-
diately vanishing from memory, Sade presented her with the dress and
she shpped it over her smooth, shining skin.

Not a so\md could be heard, as if everyone had drawn a breath at the
same moment. Figg felt it in hims elf, her innocence and something more,
her resignation, as she adjusted the hang of the supple, heavy fabric. The
image of her movements was repeated around the world and Figg
watched them on his inner eye as at the same time his outer was watch-
ing the living Cherry, whom Sade was kissing now, Cherry raising her
slim hands to his shoulders as if she would like to push him away.

The next morning, Figg watched a special report entitled, “The Silence
of Figg,” broadcast on several different channels of the Surroimd, a few of
them just sHghtly out of sync with the rest, so that he saw this broadcast
about himself in a sort of rippling, wavering present moment. He had
been aware of the docmnentary for some time and his agents had secret-
ly encouraged its production and placement while his lawyers had at-
tempted to quash it at every stage of its development in order to make it
notoriously and widely discussed. Figg’s own personal polling services
had detect^ a slight droop in his profile of late, and it was felt he could
use this opportimity to bolster his place in the spectrum of the famous
and powerful.

The documentary told the story of his childhood, his early careers and
successes, his inheritance of title to Marmigon on the passing of Thabian
Curtide, Figg’s uncle and mentor. Fineas Figg became the new proprietor
of the most powerful property on Senal.

Intercut with the narrative about his marriages with various men and
women were live updates from the party, where his good friend Sade
reigned in splendor over a recreation of the audition of yoimg men and
women and boys and girls for retirement to the Chateau Silling, one of
the primary episodes of the early pages of The 120 Days of Sodom. In the
novel, the four heroes retire to a chateau in the remote mountains of
France to hold a series of theme-driven orgies with their partners, chosen
from the cream of French youth by means legal and illegal. The Sade of
the current-day had adapts this narrative to his own purposes,

Figg sent down a proxy sphere to wander through the crowds and take
in the sights. Cherry was among the performers, wearing the elegant
gown, sipping something from a stemmed glass, looking a bit out of her
head. She was playing the part of a stepdaughter sold in a back alley of
Paris to one of the procuresses. Over the elegant Oscartine gown was her
period costume, with puffed, ruffled sleeves and a long, fuU skirt, a high
waist cut just imder the bosom, and a kind of hat called a bonnet over her
own now-varicolored hair. She hadn’t the least look of someone acting in
any kind of spectacle, neither fiightened nor reluctant. The camera took
her in as often as possible.

Her linage was capturing a good percentage of bandwidth that mom-

The 1 20 Hours of Sodom

31

February 2005

ing; the Surround was fiill of snatches of her story, nothing terribly co-
herent. A couple of newsmixers had sent a crew into the Reeks to explore
Cherry’s home environment; the Reeks were not so much a single location
as a state of certain parts of the Third Tier, people crammed shoulder to
shoulder day and night, able to claim only as much space as they could
occupy, lucky ones, like Cherry’s family, part of a large enough group to
hold onto a space inside some walls, where there was a bit of security.
Figg watched scenes allegedly taped in a market in the Reeks, the frame
so crowded with bodies that it was impossible to make much of the mer-
chandise, glimpsed now and then behind a tapestry of sallow faces. In
many parts of the Third Tier, there was never much of sunlight, either
real or transferred, and the whole panorama of the news item had a
macabre quality, a scene as perverse, desperate, and flesh-filled in its way
as the scenes ^m Sade’s party.

Scenes of squalor in the Reeks were sometimes projected over images
of Cherry, the ghost images weaving in and out of each other. Cherry so
graceful, so small and slight, emerging naked from her cluysalis and don-
ning the shimmering gown. Cherry moving among party guests, her
bodyguards keeping them all away ^m her, and many of ^em hanging
ba(i without any encouragement to do so, as if reluctant to come too close
to the poisonous fabric of her shimmy. These were the first images fix)m
the party that moved Figg in any erotic way. The clench of her small,
round buttocks imder the fabric of the dress excited him.

He was due to attend the party later in the evening. In the meantime
he had a regression session, not very satisfying, to bring back some lus-
ter to his three-hundred-year-old skin. His actual birthday came in two
da}^, the day Cherry was to die. He wanted to look his best.

After the party that evening, he had a singular dream. His body was
randomized to dose itself with a mild hallucinogen during sleep, calculat-
ed to give his dreams a rich, vivid, altered-consciousness quality; he pre-
ferred not to know when these dreams would visit him, in order to keep
fi*om falling back into habitual use of these same hallucinogens, a problem
that had plagued him off and on for the last century or so. The dream con-
cerned the Reeks, impersonal images of the crowding, the way it would
feel to walk in the crowd, the press of bodies fi:t)m all sides, the smell of the
imwashed, the dank breath, the dirty look of the hair, the pallor of the
lighter skin tones, the sallow quality of the browns. Moments later in the
dream Figg wondered what it would be like to run into Cherry there, and
shortly after he did, of com^, and he and she were walking hand in hand.
The chemical made this part of the dream richly colored, the feeling of her
warm hand pressed against his own very vivid, even to the slight moisture
of her palm. She tomed and smiled at him eveiy so often, the same smile
each time, and then closed her eyes and turned her face away.

The low ceilings, the narrow corridors full of people, the shops with
their armed guards, the markets like armed camps, all oppressed Figg
greatly, and not only that but actually pressed against him, or seemed to,
firom aU sides. He felt confined as never before in his life. Was this what it
was like in the deepest sections of the Reeks?

32

Jim Grimsiey

Asimov's

Suddenly Cherry vanished and a new face pressed closer, a gaunt, sex-
less middlewam with a bony pelvis and foul breath, a set of greasy urchins
against his legs, other faces swimming in all directions but refusing to re-
solve themselves into wholes, and a smeD of rot that was overwhelming.
Hands reached into his clothing. ChiUy skin touched his own and he shiv-
ered and awoke, the flush of tiie hallucinogen adjusting itself^ subsiding a
bit, sensing the sudden change in his consciousness. He looked around his
sleeping room at the play of shadows from the narrow windows. Light
from the moon bathed him in the bed as his breathing quieted. Penelope
stepped oflFhis head to preen herself on the pillow, mindless of him.

To anchor the third day of the party, Sade had incorporated some of the
most horrific moments from Olivah Toss’s own reading of the Marquis’s
novel, including the rape of the kitchen maids, their subsequent torture
and destruction. The masques, as he called them, took place in a different
part of Marmigon, the Transcendent Momingstar Promenade, which had
been transformed into a maze-like representation of a pre-Transit
chateau, a huge house made of stone with thick walls, gloomily lit by
lamps and candles, decorated with couches, settees, cushions, carpets,
and torture devices. A parade of celebrities, pohticians, and Onniny an-
chored the media coverage. Sade had even invited a few select schools at
all age levels to send groups for an educational tour of the elaborate liv-
ing exhibitions. Various guest hosts, interviews, autographings, and auc-
tions, kept the party guests entertained. The overnight reports on the sat-
uration of media coverage of the party had obviously pleased Sade, who
sent Figg a mentext message of congratulations, as if Figg, too, had a per-
sonal stake in this triumph.

Cherry was on display through the day, sometimes walking through the
party with her bodyguards, other times inhabiting a high platform that
rais^ her above the co mm on crowd. She moved serenely in the Oscartine
gown, now and then reclining on a couch or studying a handheld. The
platform was secured by its own set of well-dressi security people and
no one was allowed to go to the top except Cherry and her guests. So far
she had invited no guests.

Figg foimd himself repulsed by the orgies rather than feeling any ves-
tige of his old attraction to this sort of pleasure. Even an adjustment of
his blood chemistry to a state of pre-arousal failed to stimulate his inter-
est. At one time, he would have been at the center of the crowd, watching
avidly as Durcet and the Bishop each administered two hundred lashes
to the poor, nameless maid, her backside streaming blood and raw with
flayed skin. He would have been fascinated at the amputation of several
of the boy Giton’s fingers dxiring another episode in another part of the
faux chateau. Arriving at the party for his scheduled appearance, he
foimd the whole scenario to be more tedious than titillating.

Instead of the orgies, he attended Cherry. As she drifted fi*om place to
place on top of her private temple, she appeared as comfortable and easy
with herself as if she had been perfectly alone. A crowd ringed the plat-
form, watching her every move.

Sade said, “I hope you’re enjo3dng yourself,” in a low tone.

The 120 Hours of Sodom

33

February 2005

Figg nodded his head slightly.

Sade leaned close to Figg. “I can’t get that girl to come off the platform.
She should be down here where the guests can see her.” The lean-in and
the low tone were for photo-effect, for the cameras, their conversation
screened by their two privacy fields.

“I think she looks quite mysterious.” The Hilda had fetched Figg a
drink and handed it to him; he sipped the cool, biting hquor and went on.
“People appear to be paying a good deal of attention to her up there.”

“Yes, but it’s splitting the focus.”

Figg shrugged. “I suppose yoiir party’s not much to her taste.”

A genuine look of vexation took over Sade’s features and he spoke with
some exasperation. “I don’t care what’s to her taste. She’s supposed to be
down here, dying, in public.”

Above them and at some distance, she was fondling a piece of sculpture
which obviously gave her a low-grade pleasure stimulation, judging fi*om
the way she moved her hands over it, and the way she moved the sculp-
ture, a twist of smooth stone, against her torso. A large cluster of cameras
was filming her from a distance; her status as a legal suicide actually
gave her a larger zone of protection than even Figg’s attorney system
could manage. “I could go and talk to her,” Figg said.

“If She’D let you up. Those are her guards, over there. She’s only spoken
to one or two reporters during the whole party and Fm sure they paid for
the privilege.”

“She’s turned out to be a very clever yovmg woman.”

“Yes, she has,” said Sade, and his eyes sharpened on Figg at that mo-
ment. “Do you t hink she’s going to bolt?”

Looking at the slim figure moving in the shimmering light, a kind of
dreaminess to her presence, Figg shook his head. He found himself sad at
the thought, and irritated by the sadness. “No. I don’t think she will. As
long as we don’t try to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Where’s the fim in that?” Sade asked.

Figg and his entourage wasted no time in crossing to the platform, and
Figg presented his compliments to Cherry, who, to the surprise of nearly
everyone, sent word for him to climb to the top for a chat with her.

She was aware of her status in this moment of the party, clearly. Stand-
ing at the center of the platform, she was smoking a thin, long cylinder as
Figg approached. She offered the butt of whatever it was to Figg, and he
shook his head. “Fm already using,” Figg said, “I don’t want to mix.”

She shrugged, and blink^ at him. “Did the freak send you up here?”

“The fi:«ak?”

“The party boss. The one with the sick imagination.”

“You don’t like Sade’s party?”

“What kind of party is full of weird stuff like this?” Cherry asked, mak-
ing it plain she meant the tableaux, which appeared small and insignifi-
cant from this vantage, to a greater degree than the height of the plat-
form could explain. “Is that really what you people like to do with all your
money?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you like that stuff?”

34

Jim Grimsiey

Asimov's

Figg reflected, stood there just long enough to consider decently, and
said, “No, not reaUy. I used to. But Pve changed, it appears.”

“You used tor

“Yes.”

“Ripping off women’s nipples and amputation and torture and all thatr

Figg felt vaguely imcoinfortable. “Most of that’s being faked, of course.
But yes, I used to enjoy it. Some of it.”

Figg foimd himself watching her in a familiar way, with a softening of
his feelings toward her, and a kind of nimbus of light around her pres-
ence. An old and xmwelcome feeling threatened to unloose itself

“I know exactly what you came up here to do,” she said, smiling. “You
want me to come down there.”

“That’s what Sade wants. He wants me to convince you to come down.”

“Do you really think I should?”

“Possibly. He could make things difficult, you know.”

“m be dead tomorrow. How much more difficult can it get?”

He gave her a wry smile. “He could dispute your contract after you’re
not here to defend yourself”

“He’ll have to fight my attorneys. Fm in comphance.”

“Why doesn’t Sade agree?”

She shrugged, not at aU hostile. “I don’t know. I’m at the party. You see?
That’s all I ever agreed to do. That and dying are my only commitments.
And I assume this dress is doing its work.”

She spoke with such conviction it was impossible to contradict her. Figg
checked himself, moving very carefully in her vicinity. The old, unwel-
come feeling had failed to crystallize so far, but neither had it vanished.
He continued to look at her with careful neutrality, testing himself at
each moment. He said, “All right, then. I don’t really care whether you
wander around down there one way or the other. The whole thing is much
more mysterious if you stay up here, aloof.”

“That’s what my agent says.”

The mention of her agent brought just the right squalid note to the mo-
ment, and Figg took a deep breath. “Well, I won’t keep you. Could I ask
you one question? You said you’re doing this for your brother.”

“He gets the money. I spent some of it, but he gets the biggest part.”

“Is he stifi in the Reeks?”

The question stilled her, and she studied Figg with care. “Why do you
want to know?”

“It’s possible I might want to help him.” Figg spoke cautiously. He had
known what he woiild say only an instant before he spoke.

“Help?”

“Beyond the money you leave him. It’s possible that I may be of some
service.”

“Why?”

Figg shrugged, uncomfortable. “Fm a very old man. It’s simply a whim.”

She wait^ a moment, as if gauging the truth of what he said, rolling
the words around in some sifter in her head. “His name is Keely,” she
said. “My attorney knows where he is. He lives with my older sister’s
group right now. But they don’t have room for him to stay.”

The 120 Hours of Sodom

35

February 2005

“Yovir parents?”

“In public wards. They couldn’t maintain group housing.”

The spectacle of her face in a truly vulnerable expression astonished
him, and he felt a pang of caring for her that he qviickly attempted to iso-
late and suppress. With the help of his emotion^ enhancements he was
able to do so, but for a moment, he felt a deep bond of affection for Cherry,
or for whoever she really was.

“Til see what I can do,” Figg said, and turned away, unsettled.

He thought no more about the party or Cherry’s brother but only about
Cherry herself Retiiming to his private rooms, leaving the party sooner
than expected, though it did not matter, with so many other celebrities in
attendance. He stood at the window, looking at the distant ocean.

The next day he went down to the party finale dressed in simple
evening clothes, accompanied by the Hilda, the Herman, Penelope, and
his bodyguards.

The size of the crowd astonished him, liuninary after luminary crowded
into the Azure Peacock Stillness Room, the penthouse ballroom usually
reserved for private functions of House Bemona-kakenet. Here was
Carmela Carvaughn waving her white handkerchief to her fans, there
was President Mbimibo of AnRanCity and his wife the First Lady of Good
Harbors hanging on his arm. Yonder was Chang, famous B^yoton
Bombers tight-end of stipple-ball accompanied by yet another beautiful
boyfriend. Above them all beyond the transparent ceiling, astonishing
and stark, opened a sky darkening to violet, clusters of stars twinkling
beyond rags of cloud.

Cherry walked among the crowd in a globe of light that moved with
her, a couple of bodyguards at her side. Wherever she moved, the crowd
parted for her as if in the presence of an Orminy matron. She was speak-
ing to people with an air of physical ease, pla3dng the part of hostess with
everyone here a guest. At first she moved too far away for Figg to see her
face, but he passed near enough, on the way to his own station, to catch
the drawn, tired air of her, eyes bleary as if she had not slept.

She had been doing this duty for a while, the Surround full of her im-
age, moving among the party guests in the dramatic last moments of her
life. For tonight she was the only star of the party and the theme of the
Marquis de Sade and Chateau Silling were forgotten. She drifted among
the most beautiful people in the world.

Quiet music was playing, waiters ambling through the crowd, tables of
food and drink scatter^ through the ballroom. Along the far wall of glass
overlooking the ocean paced Sade himself, on the broad dais where the
most intimate birthday guests had gathered, awaiting Figg’s arrival.

Overhead, at the center of the room, a clock was counting down. Only a
few more minutes were left. The arrival of Figg heralded the beginning of
the end, as Sade had planned. When Figg took his seat on the dais, eldest
of the eldest Orminy house, Sade came to stand beside him, and Cherry,
imdulating through the crowd in her glowing shinuny, headed gradually
toward him at the same time.

Her step became imcertain as she approached, and she paused to move

36 Jim Grimsiey

Asimov's

strands of hair carefully out of her eyes. She was weakening visibly as the
clock womid down toward zero. Sade smiled in satisfaction. She looked at
Figg as she approached, her yoimg face fresh, gleaming, her skin so moist
and soft he longed to stroke her cheek with his thumb. Sweating hghtly,
as if fevered, for a moment she had a tentative look, as if she might be
changing her mind, as if she might turn to one of her attendants and sig-
nal that she wanted to appeal the contract she had signed. She still had
time. But up the steps to the dais she climbed and as she rose higher,
looking over the crowd of stars and luminaries who had come to watch
her die, she grew more and more serene.

She turned to Figg and said, “Happy birthday,” as the last seconds of
her life flowed away and she sank to her knees.

Sade walked slowly toward Cherry as she panted, struggling to
breathe. He was holding something in his hand, a control of some kind.
Guests pressed toward them on the dais, but everyone left a space aroimd
Figg, Sade, and Cherry. “Before we say good-bye, I have a surprise for
you,” Sade said to her, glancing at Figg a few meters away.

“I’m not sure I want anything more from you,” Cherry answered, sup-
porting herself on hands and knees, looking up at him with effort.

Cameras had been warned by someone and were picking up the scene.

“Aren’t you curious about my surprise?” Sade asked.

“Why should I be?”

“Well, for one thing, because I’m paying you a great deal of money.”

She gave him a scomfiil look. “And Fm about to give you what you want.”

“There’s someone who wants to share your last moments with you,”
Sade said, and gave her a smile that chilled the air. He touched the con-
trol in his hand. “I brought him here to see you.”

A small boy appeared beside him, concealed in a privacy cloak until
Sade turned it off. He was slim to the point of gaimtness with large roimd
eyes and jug-sized ears, a homely child, and fium Cherry’s startled, ten-
der reaction, it was obvious he was Keely, her brother.

She turned on Figg a look of purest hate that froze him and numbed
him. The next second, she knelt in front of her brother. She had eyes only
for him. She tried to say something, and the thin boy gripped her tight,
face stricken with fear. Her face went ashen, suddenly, and the life drained
out of her so gradually Figg could not have said exactly at what moment
she died. But she was facing her brother until at last only he was holding
her up. This was the image that swept around the world in a heartbeat,
the brother lost, holding his dead sister, Sade standing over them both.

The look of hate Cherry had given, the clear suspicion that Figg had be-
trayed her, made Figg go cold. He glared at Sade, who was smiling, with
not the least inkling of what he had set in motion.

The deed was done in a moment. Mistigan was on duty for any problem
that might arise with the party finale. Figg registered his intentions with
the proper authorities in a trice, targeted Penelope, and moved forward
to take the boy, Keely, into his arms in one smooth gesture. Sade made
some soimd of protest and then one of terror, as Penelope appeared and
hurried toward him.

The child hardly resisted, so fight that Figg could carry him easily. He

The 1 20 Hours of Sodom

37

February 2005

moved down the dais, away from Cherry’s body as, behind them, Penelope
circled Sade with web, climbed partway up his legs to bite him, paralyzed
him to stop his cries, and killed him in front of all those present at his
party, driving those needlepoint legs into his soft, pale flesh.

The Herman and the Hilda stayed behind to guard Cherry. Figg’s
bodyguard swept him and Keely through the stimned crowd. The news
went out that the eldest of Bemona-kakenet had killed his old friend
Sade. This would be the stuff of opera, one member of the Orminy killing
another, like old times. The gueste, expecting only a suicide, received the
murder of their host as an added bonus. Senal’s most powerful Orminy
family had once again exercised its hereditary right to legal murder; the
headhnes were already beginning to jangle against each other in the Sur-
roimd. Liberals would wring their hands but the Ministries, being them-
selves controlled by the Orminy, would do nothing.

Penelope caught up with them before they reached the private elevator,
slipped quietly up Figg’s sleeve and nestled into his scalp without any fuss.

As the elevator doors slid efficiently closed and the elevator began to
carry them to the penthouse, Figg saw Cherry’s face again, the pvuity of
her hate when she had assumed he had betrayed her, and then her de-
spair as life ebbed away. He shivered and looked down at the child, still
sobbing, but attempting to stifle himself against Figg’s trousers, shiver-
ing with terror and trying to be silent at the same time.

A moment of heartache filled Figg, unfamiliar after so long and yet so
full, the kind of emotion he had despaired he might never feel again. He
knelt gently and Keely, startled, made a soimd of fear. “It’s all right,” Figg
said at once, in a hush, as the boy, big-eyed, looked at him. “I promise, it’s
all right. It will be all right.” He repeated the words, as if for himself

“I want my sister,” the boy said, in a hollow wail that filled the elevator
car, a soimd so big it shook even the bodyguards.

Kgg’s voice steadied. “Your sister is dead. I’m sorry.”

Keely, face collapsing into hurt, nodded that he understood. He was al-
most frowning and his face, trembling, was like Cherry’s. He collapsed
against Figg, and it was too late, then, to do anything to stop the feelings
that flooded him, again, after such a long time. He took Keely home, fed
him, sat with him, put him to bed. Figg could feel, as he did, that his life
would have to open again, like a flower in bloom. As the night faded and
morning light flooded the windows of the room where the child was sleep-
ing, Figg realized what he was feeling was a change in himself, welcome
because it meant he was still, truly, alive.

Sade’s picture, taken at the moment of his death, filled every comer of
the Surround for days. In the best of the images, Penelope had ham-
strung him with web and was climbing up the side of his neck, sinking
her legs into him as she climbed. Streams of blood flowed from the thin
shafts. Sade raised both hands as if in supplication, his face flooded with
ecstasy, and he gazed beyond the camera as if at something waiting. He
was, as he had wished to be, at the center of the media world for a time,
but was soon superceded when the news went out that Purity, the sarsa-
flower slave at the Prudent Greenhouse, had finally wasted away to noth-
ing and died. Her master, the flower, afterward perished of grief O

38

Jim Grimsley

OMNIVORES

The physicists want
a Theory of Everything.
They sit in their
cafeteria dining halls
scribbling the secrets
of the universe on
napkins while brushing
away bread crumbs
and angling their
pens so that their
equations don't run
into the mustard stain.
One of them pulls
a fresh napkin from
a dispenser. This one's
cleaner, he says.
Another physicist
hesitates, then takes
it and explains her
Theory of Everything.
All the physicists
watch her but they
are thinking about that
last slice of apple pie
waiting on the counter
under the glass for
one of them to say it's
mine it's all mine.

— Mario Milosevic

William Sanders began writing professionally over
thirty years ago, though it was only in the nineties
that he took up the short story. A regular contributor
to Asimov's, he has also appeared in other magazines
and anthologies, and has twice won the Sidewise
Award for Alternate History. Mr. Sanders's latest story
collection— Is It Now ^el.^s published by Wildside
Press. Terror in the skies takes on a chilling new
meaning in Mr. Sanders's frightening look at . . .

ANGEL KILLS

William Sanders

I was there when Carmody got his twenty-second angel. Fd been there
when he got some of the others, but I hadn’t actually seen it happen, hav-
ing been pretty busy m 3 rself at the time.

This time, though, I had the best seat in the house: I was flying Car-
modys wing. That was pretty imusual, since as squadron exec I led my
own flight; but there was a virus going around and we were running
shorthanded, and then at the last minute Robinson’s wife went into labor
and I took his place so he could go to the hospital.

The angels showed up late in the patrol, going after a United 757 that
was coming in to the south runway, and we intercepted and scattered
them with no damage to either side. I didn’t even get in a shot, being oc-
cupied covering Carmody. Orozco, coming up behind, said later that she’d
taken a couple of shots and missed. That was all of us; as I say, we were
shorthanded.

This bvmch of angels weren’t very aggressive; they started disappear-
ing almost as soon as we showed up. The 757 touched down unharmed,
except for tires smoking from a too-fast landing. So much for that, I
thought, checking the clock and the fiiel level as we swimg out over the
big freeway interchange and started a tight circle back toward Sky Har-
bor. We tried to avoid flying over downtown Phoenix if we could help it;
the chainsaw racket of tun^-up Lycomings made the citizens nervous.

Then Carmody’s voice came though the headphones: “Huey, two o’clock
low!”

I looked but I didn’t see anything. Balls, I would have said if it had been
anybody else, but everybody knew about Carmod/s freakish eyesight. I
craned my neck to stare down past the cockpit coaming, and sure enough,
there the bastard was, down low, flying east above Buckeye Road. What

40

Asimov's

it was doing, why it hadn’t vanished with the others, there was no point
in trying to guess; trying to figure angels is a good way to go crazy.

Carmody was already rolling into a steeply descending pursuit curve, the
little biplane dropping like a stooping &lcon toward the flitting white shape
below. I followed him down, looking aroimd quickly in case it was a trap —
not that anybody’s ever heard of angels trying anything that tricky, but you
never know — and a moment later I heard him call, “Alpha Two, clear me.”

“Alpha One,” I said, “you are clear.”

The actual kill was no big deal. The angel was still flying straight and
level — maybe there was something wrong with it, whatever that would
mean in angel terms — and Carmody simply dropped down eistem and
fired. From my position I couldn’t see the flash of Carmody’s gun, but a
red spot appeal^ on the angel’s back, right between the wings, and then al-
most instantly there was a great big yellowish flash and the angel was gone.

Carmody was yelling at me again. “Alpha Two, can you confirm?”

“Affirmative,” I said. You had to observe all the formahties with Car-
mody or he’d get his jock in a knot. “Destruction confirmed,” I added for the
record. They didn’t like us to say “kill” on the radio; it upset some people.

There was a sudden scream in the earphones. “Control to Alpha One,” a
woman’s voice said, soimding very excit^. “Congratulations! You did it!”

That was when I realized what had just happened. Fd forgotten about
Carmody’s record. As of now, he was the top scorer in the United States
and maybe the world. The Russians were claiming one of their gu 3 rs had
knocked down sixty or so, but if you believed that you’d believe an 3 rthing.

Carmody’s port wings lifted as he started to turn back toward home,
while sounds of cheering came through the earphones; and I followed,
thinking: well, now the bullshit starts to get deep.

It was two da}^ later that Lewis showed up. Carmody was off to Wash-
ington to get his hand shaken by the president, leaving me in charge, so 1
got to meet the new man first.

He strode briskly into the office and came to attention in front of my
desk. I let him stand there for a few seconds while 1 looked him up and
down. Healthy-looking lad, solid shoulders under his crisp uniform
blouse, wiiy no-ass build. On the short side, but then if he hadn’t been he
wouldn’t have gotten hired; a Pitts cockpit just isn’t roomy enough for the
big bo)rs. You could have called him handsome, I suppose, if you liked that
strong-jawed, clean-cut look. Kind of a three-quarter-size Lil Abner.

I said, “Sit down, for God’s sake.”

“Yes, sir.” He went over and sat in the nearest chair. I swear he man-
aged to sit at attention.

I started to tell him to knock it off, but then I realized I wouldn’t be do-
ing him a favor. Carmody would love him, just as he was. We weren’t re-
ally a military organization — technically we were a branch of the Trans-
portation Security Administration, just like the guy who puts your
baggage through the scanning machine — but Carmody thought we ou^t
to be, and he could get very tiresome if you didn’t go ^ong with his little
Dawn Patrol fanteisy.

I said, “Fve looked at your records. You did pretty well in training.” In

Angel Kills

41

February 2005

fact he’d been close to the top of his class; his scores were sure as hell bet-
ter than mine had been. “So,” I said, “I’m sure you can answer a simple
question for me.”

I reached into the top drawer and took out a movmted photo and held
it up. “What is this?”

He glanced at the picture. “Sir,” he said, “that is a Hostile Unidentified
Entity. Popularly known as an angel.”

“Uh huh.” I laid the picture on the desk, face up. “Officially we’re sup-
posed to call them HUEs, because ‘angel’ offends the rehgious whackos
who form such an important part of our revered president’s base of sup-
port. And for official purposes we go along with it, and on the radio we call
them Hueys because somebody might be listening. Unofficially, though,
among ourselves, we call them angels, same as everybody else.” Even our
heroic leader. Lord Carmody Ye Penis-Headed.

“Yes, sir,” Lewis said.

I wanted badly to teU him to quit calling me “sir,” but I knew if I did he’d
say, “Yes, sir,” and then Fd have to kill him and that would look like heU on
our efficiency report. I sighed and tapped the picture with my fingertips.

“Wrong answer, in any case,” I told him. “You told me what this is
called. I asked you what it is. And the correct answer is: nobody knows.”

“Uh, yes sir. I mean, no sir.” His smooth-shaven cheeks went faintly
pink. “T^at is — ”

“Nobody knows what they are,” I said. “Nobody knows if they’re alive,
or some sort of non-living devices, or something else that we don’t have
any words for. Nobody knows if they’re intelligent, or just progranuned,
or being directed fi’om wherever they come from, not that anybody knows
where that is either. Or even if where they come from is a ‘where’ in the
sense of a location in our universe.”

It was obvious he wanted to speak, but I raised a hand. “No, Lewis, just
listen, all right? Fm aware they went over all this at the training school.
And you took notes and learned the answers for the tests but deep down,
like everybody else, you wondered if they were telling you the whole
truth. Didn’t you? Di^’t you sort of figure that when you finally got out
and joined an operational squadron, you’d find out the real story?”

I stood up and walked around the desk. “Well, I hate to disappoint you,
but what they told you is pretty much the straight word. There aren’t any
secrets. At least none that anybody in the field knows. Maybe the govern-
ment’s got something more, but if they do they’re not sharing it with us.”

I hung my ass on the edge of the desk and looked down at him. “We still
don’t know what the angels are. They don’t show up on radar, and they
don’t leave any heat signature except when they’re using those cutting
torches or energy-beam weapons or whatever the hell they are. Nobody’s
ever had a chance to study one, because they explode and vanish without
a trace when you kill them. Try to capture them and they simply disap-
pear, and you’re lucky if they don’t kill you first. A lot of good men died,
Lewis, finding out how much we don’t know. Made the supreme sacrifice
to expand the boundaries of our ignorance.”

I paused, but he didn’t say anything, not even another yes-sir. He actu-
aUy appeared to be thinking. Amazing.

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“We think we know a few things about them ” I said. “We think we
know they never go after anything on the ground, but all we really know
is that they haven’t done it so far. We think we know a little about their
performance envelope, but it’s all just extrapolation from observation.
There’s no scientific basis, because by any of the known rules of aerody-
namic science they can’t fly at all. Those white wings don’t have enough
area even for gliding flight, let alone the kind of hairy-ass maneuvering
these bastards do.”

In fact there’s a very persuasive theory that the “wings” aren’t for flying
at all; that they serve some other purpose that we can’t even guess at.
But no doubt Lewis knew about that, too.

“But then,” I added, “by any scientific rules, they can’t exist. And no-
body knows for sure if they do, as we understand physical existence.”

I picked up the pictm-e again and looked at it. It was a typical gun cam-
era shot, grainy and fiizzy, but you could still see all the main details. An
angel looks an^hing but angehc when you see its face up close. If you can
call that a face; if that’s even what it is. That nasty-looking V-shaped slit
that looks like a mouth could just as well be its equivalent of an asshole.

“It’s been a little over two years since they showed up, Lewis, and the
state of our knowledge can be summed up in the words: jack shit. All we
know for sime is that they like to cut airplanes open in midair and do hor-
rible things to the people inside. And we don’t even know why they do
that — food, tissue specimens, hell, sacrifices, they could have a religion for
all we can say — and it’s possible we never will.”

I tossed the picture onto the desk. “The other thing we know is that it’s
our job to stop them from doing it. Which gets us back to you and the rea-
son you’re here, so let’s get you processed in and then we’ll go see what
you can do with a Pitts.”

Lewis was already suited up and waiting for me outside the ready room
door, helmet tucked under his arm, when I came out of the office a couple
of hours later. He didn’t quite come to attention when he saw me, but he
pulled himself up even straighter as he said, “Ready, sir?”

“Right with you.” I went into the ready room and got my helmet out of
my locker — screw the coveralls, it was too damn hot and Carmody wasn’t
aroimd to give me shit about regulations — and went back outside. Lewis
was still standing there, gazing up at the sky to the west, where not much
was happening. A 737 was climbing steeply over downtown Phoenix, too
high now to identify the airline. Lower and closer, you could just make out
the little shiny dots that had been its escort, wheeling back toward the
airport, their job done now that it had enough speed and altitude to be
safe. The buzz of their engines soimded toylike at this distance.

Lewis said, “Seems awfully quiet, sir.”

Without looking at him I said, “Where are you from, Lewis?”

“Rawlins, Wyoming. That’s in the western part — ”

“I know where it is. Been very many angel attacks there?”

“No, sir. We’re over six thousand feet.”

And the angels can’t, or at least don’t, operate higher than about a mile.
Which is why they show up around airports — since they can only get at

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43

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the planes during takeoff or landing — and also why Denver finds itself a
major international airline hub,

I said, "And you thought things would be livelier at a place like this, did
you? Fighting off hordes of angels, day after day?”

“Well, not exactly — “

“Oh, I don’t blame you. The way the news media go on, you could easily
get the impression it’s a regular combat zone over any major airport.”

I nodded in the direction he’d been looking. “In fact, though, this is pret-
ty typical. We’ll go for two or three weeks, occasionally a month or more,
without seeing an angel. Then all of a sudden there they are, and things
get intense for a little while, and then they’re gone and it’s back to rou-
tine patrolling again.”

He stood for a moment digesting this. “Yes, sir,” he said finally. “I sup-
pose I didn’t realize ... I mean, 3mu hear about a new angel attack almost
every day or two.”

“Sure. Somewhere in the world, they materialize and try for a plane.
But you’ll find that usually that was the only attack reported that day,
anywhere. Now and then there’ll be two in a twenty-foxir-hour period, on
a few rare occasions three or fom; but I’ve never heard of more. And al-
most never twice in a row at the same location.”

I turned to face him. “I hope you really like to fly around in circles,
Lewis, because that’s what you’re going to be doing for most of your time
here. Come on.”

We walked over to the hangar area. The heat was coming up off the con-
crete apron with brutal force; it was like walking across the top of a stove.

The two planes were sitting at the front of the hangar with their noses
sticking out like a couple of inquisitive puppies. They looked slightly com-
ical, despite their black-and-white govemment-cop paint jobs: dinky lit-
tle open-cockpit biplanes with spatted wheels, like something from the
nineteen-thirties. They certainly didn’t look like professional killers.

But then they’d never been designed for that; they’d alwa3rs been strictly
for sport, for competition aerobatics and air-show exhibitions. If you’d told
Ciu^ Pitts, back in the forties, that his basic design would one day prove
to be the perfect weapon in a specialized war, he’d have lauded in your face.

It’s true, all the same. Only a little gymnast like the Pitts can mix it up
with the darting, jinking, flitting angels. The military tried with their big
proud jets, and lost too damn many of them before ^ey finally admitted
defeat and left the job to us.

Larabee came out the side door of the hangar. “Everything ready?” I
said, and Larabee nodded.

“Didn’t want to roll them out till you got here. Leave them sitting out
in that sun even a few minutes, you’d get a blistered ass when you
climbed in.” Larabee grinned. “This the new man?”

“This is Lewis,” I told her, and she gave him an up-and-down once-over
and then looked at me and raised one eyebrow, just a little bit, still grin-
ning. I stifled a laugh and made a follow-me gesture to Lewis and we
walked on into the hangar.

I gave my plane a quick walk-aroimd and then hoisted myself into the
tiny cockpit — ^you don’t so much climb aboard a Pitts as pull it on like a

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pair of pants — and sat for a moment, enjoying the slightly cooler air in-
side the hangar, before starting the primary check routine. I flipped the
battery switch and watched the instnunente come alive. Nothing seemed
to be waving its arms at me. I glanced up at the Hght gun on its mount
above the upper wing. The little red LED was on, showing the auxihary
battery fully charged; even though this wasn’t a combat flight, we were
supposed to be ready for action any time we left the ground.

The gun was the one wrong-lookhig thing about the Pitts, and even then
it didn’t look like a weapon. After all, it was just a glorified flashlight, to-
tally harmless to hmnans or any other living thing except an angel.

VVhich is yet another of those questions without answers. Why should a
beam of highly focused light, at a certain notch on the red spectrum — ba-
sically a modified laser — ^have such instant and terminal effects on any
angel it hits? Nobody even has a credible theory on that one. They only
discovered it by accident, while trying to develop a new aiming system;
and thank God, if there is one, that they did, because so far it’s the only
way anybody’s foimd to kill the bastards. An angel can take any number
of direct hits fi-om cannon shells or rockets without even seeming to no-
tice, but nail him with the light gun and he’s gone.

And there are other advantages, like being able to shoot them off a
plane imder attack without harming the aircraft or the people inside. In
fact the light gun represents one of the few positive developments in the
war against our angelic visitors.

I looked over at Lewis. He gave me a thiunbs-up signal. I switched off
and jacked m3^1f up out of the tiny cockpit and said, “Okay, Larabee, let’s
roll them out.”

We climbed to six thousand and I led the way northward, past the
ragged brown bulk of Piestewa Peak and the shiny sprawl of the wildly
misnamed Paradise Valley. Somewhere down there, I remembered, there
used to be a field for ultralight aircraft and gliders. Christ, had it only
been a couple of years ago that people thought nothing of flying aroimd
at low altitudes, moving slower than a good motorcycle, with nothing
worse to worry about than engine failures and bad weather? Even ordi-
nary private flying was just a memory over large areas of the coimtry, ex-
cept for the few privileged bastards who could afford something like a
Leaijet. Last I heard, Cessna was laying off half their work force.

Finally we were over more or less empty desert. I thmnbed the mike
switch and said, “Okay, Lewis. Try and stay with me.”

I opened the throttle and eased the nose down into a shallow dive, build-
ing a bit of speed, and then suddenly I yanked the Pitts up into a vertical
climb, watching between my feet as the horizon came into view through
the clear panel in the cockpit floor. I gave her a little rudder, keeping her
perpendicular, while the airspeed needle swung rapidly counterclockwise.
Just 8is the Pitts ran out of speed I kicked hard right rudder.

The world beyond the cockpit went momentarily crazy as the Pitts
flipped sidewise into a stall turn and pinwheeled down the sky, the Ly-
coming screaming like an axe murderer. When the nose was pointing
straight down I steadied her and then threw the stick over. Maricopa

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45

February 2005

Covinty rotated through 360 degrees as it rushed up toward me. I hauled
back on the stick and pulled her out of the dive, somewhat lower than the
authorities would have approved of, and kept going up into a loop. At the
top of the loop I changed my mind, rolled upright, said why not and con-
tinued through a triple snap roll, and then leveled out and looked around
for Lewis.

I couldn’t see him anywhere. I started to get on the radio, to ask where
he was, but then I had a horrible thought. I checked the mirror.

There he was, snuggling up behind me like a mad proctologist. I said,
“Jesus!” involimtarily, and then, still with the mike off: “All right, pretty
boy, let’s dance.”

I spent the next hour leading Lewis around the sky, trying to lose him.
It was a very long hour.

I took him through Cuban eights and hammerhead stalls and outside
snap rolls, boomerang turns and inverted loops and negative flick rolls,
damn near everything in the book and a few things that aren’t. An ob-
server on the ground might have concluded that the pilot was having
some sort of seizure. The only thing I left out was tailslides; the way
Lewis kept coming up behind me, I was afraid Fd fall right into him.

And I couldn’t shake him. Every time I paused and looked around, there
he was. He had sense enough to back off and give me room when a maneu-
ver called for it, but then there he’d come again. At the end, after a particu-
larly violent series, I checked the mirror and he was following me inverted.

I sighed and flicked on the mike. “Right,” I said. “Point made and taken.
Let’s go home.”

Later that afternoon I locked the office and headed for the parking lot,
pausing to watch the six o’clock patrol take off. Tsosie’s Delta flight, back
up to strength now; the virus seemed to have run its course. The blare of
their engines rattled off the hangar fronts as they lifted off

The demonstrators were waiting outside the gate beyond the security
booth. Having our own parking lot and our own gate is one of the min or
perks of the job, but then the religious gazoonies foimd out about it and
they’d been picketing ever since. They yelled incomprehensibly as I drove
past, and a couple of them waved signs: SLAY NOT GODS ANNOINTED.
WOE UNTO THEM THAT RESIST THE LORD’S JUDGEMENTS. An
old lady wore a sandwich-board placard that warned bluntly HELL
AWAITS YOU.

At least they’d quit trying to block the gate, after several confrontations
with the law. They weren’t giving up, though. According to them the an-
gels were just that: heavenly spirits sent by God to punish humanity for
being wicked. For xis to try and stop them was blasphemous; to kill them
was a sin even worse than oral sex.

Not that all the religious knuckle-walkers felt this way. On the con-
trary, the majority held to a counter-theory that the angels were in reali-
ty Satanic beings, come to torment the world, their appearance merely a
trick by Lucifer — a fallen angel himself — to shake people’s faith. They
thought we were wonderful; they’d come down to the gate and wave flags

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and Bibles at us and sing hymns and pray loudly for us. Often the two
groups would get into a singing and yelling competition, each trying to
drown the other out; and a couple of times they fell to beating the shit out
of each other in front of God and the CNN cameras.

And yet they just might have been onto something, in an assbackward
sort of way. At least some knowledgeable people had suggested that the
old Biblical and medieval stories of angels with flaming swords might
represent some earher visitation.

Anyway, their ideas weren’t any screwier than some of the other expla-
nations you could hear. Like the story, widely beheved in many parts of
the world and among the looser-head^ types in this coimtry, that the an-
gels were escapees from a secret CIA program. Somebody even made a
movie about it.

I was living out in Glendale at the time, in a moderately crappy httle
duplex on a street with a silly name. At the front door I paused to empty
the mailbox. As usual there was nothing but junk mail: subscription of-
fers, solicitations for charity, a letter from my ex-wife’s lawyer. I went in-
side and back to the kitchen, where I threw the lot into the trash bin.

I got a frozen pasta dinner out of the freezer and stuck it in the mi-
crowave and waited till the beeper beeped. I opened the box again and is-
sued m 3 ^elf a beer and carried everything back into the living room. Then
I sat down in the big chair and reached for the remote and switched on
the TV and almost immediately said, “Oh, Christ.”

The angels had gotten another airhner. Worse, it had crashed into a
populous suburb of Melbourne, destroying homes and starting fires over
a large area. “The fires seem to be under control now,” an Australian-ac-
cented voiceover was sa 5 dng, while the camera panned over a row of
burning houses and then steadied on a group of men in firefighting out-
fits piling out of a truck. “There’s still considerable danger, though, that
they might spread. It’s been veiy dry lately and the wind is picking up.”

Tlie scene shifted to a studio desk, where a man in a good suit, evident-
ly the US anchor, was looking anxiously at the camera. “Still no figures,”
he asked, “on the ninnber of dead and injiired?”

“Still nothing official.” Now the screen showed a thin yoimg man hold-
ing a microphone. His short-sleeved khaki shirt was badly rumpled and
his hair hung limp across his forehead; deep stress lines showed at the
comers of his eyes and mouth. Behind him smoke rose above a scene of
general destruction.

“But,” he said, “Fd say it’s got to be in the hundreds at least, even leav-
ing aside the passengers and crew of the aircraft. This is a holiday here
in Australia, so a lot of people were home.”

Back to the anchor desk, where the suit said, “This just in: the aircraft
has been identified as a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747, inbound from Tokyo.
No further details at this time. We’ll be right back.”

The camera piilled back, as a different voiceover said, “This has been a
special news bulletin, brought to you as part of our ongoing coverage of
the HUE crisis. And now these messages from our local affihates.”

The picture dissolved into a view of a 777 under attack, with a garish

Angel Kills

47

February 2005

red-lettered legend TERROR IN THE SKIES, So they were still using
that same stock photo, not that there were all that many available with
the various governments sitting on most of them. Another fuzzy gun-cam-
era shot, but you could clearly see the white forms of half a dozen angels
crawling over the rear fuselage and the wing roots, with bright spots
where their torches were cutting into the shiny metal. That particular
plane had survived, thanks to a king-hell pilot and the nick-of-time ar-
rival of the fighters, but it was still a stomach-churning picture.

I went ahead and ate my dinner and watched as more reports came in.
They showed the wreckage of the JAL plane, or the biggest recognizable
pieces; you could just make out that distinctive humped shape of the
747’s upper forward section, lying amid the blackened ruins of several
small houses.

There were no details on the attack, or how the angels had gotten past
the escort. The Austrahans, from all Td heard, had a first-class air securi-
ty force, with their own specially designed planes. Maybe the^d gotten
careless; somebody said they’d had very few attacks in the last year.

And then again maybe it was nobod/s fault; maybe the angels had just
been imusually lucky. Or unusually smart.

After an hour or so the smts ran out of new information and started re-
peating themselves. When they showed that damn photo again I grabbed
the remote and switched channels at random.

A muscular man with his shirt off stared earnestly out at me and as-
simed me that a revolutionary new exercise system would make me look
just like him. I pimched more buttons and finally foimd a panel discus-
sion in progress on one of the allegedly educational channels. A hverish-
looking woman with a bad hairdo was sa 3 dng, “So the human race has fi-
nally made contact with an alien species, and what do we do? Kill them,
or try to. It’s so typical.”

Beside her a willowy grey-haired man nodded slowly. “Yes. Typical,
even predictable.” He fluttered an elegant long-fingered hand. “The com-
pulsion to destroy whatever we don’t vmderstand.”

The camera switched to a bespectacled man at a lectern. “And to those
who would ask, ‘What about the attacks?* ” he asked.

The woman shook her head impatiently. “ ‘Attacks7 I don’t think we
know enough about their motives to use that sort of judgmental language.
‘Contacts’ would be a better term. But,” she went on, “if the governments
of the world would give up this insane campaign to kill them off, and put
the same efibrt and resources into trying to communicate with them, per-
haps we could find out where they come fi:nm and what they want —

“What they want?” I said aloud, “You useless cow, don’t you watch the
fucking news? Take a look at what they just did in Austraha, That’s what
they want”

I gulped the rest of the beer and crumpled the can in my hand and
threw it at the screen. It fell short and hit the floor, just as the willowy
man said, “And anyway, what about the attacks by the United States on
other coimtries and their people?”

I foimd the remote and hit the power button and watched the screen go
black. Talking back to the people on TV now? Not a good sign. Definitely

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need to get out more. Take up karaoke, maybe, or enroll in a square-dance
class, or join a BDSM club.

There was a taste in my mouth like old pennies. I got up and headed to-
ward the kitchen again to get another beer, but then I changed my mind
and went into the bedroom and got the bottle of Scotch hum the bedside
table instead. Better go easy on the beer. When you spend half your wak-
ing life in the cockpit of a Pitts you have to watch your calories.

Next morning I assigned Lewis to my flight, switching Hardin to Alpha
flight, which was short with Carmody away. Hardin wasn’t happy about it
but I told him the arrangement was temporary. I had a fairly good idea
what was going to happen when Carmody got back.

For the rest of the week Lewis flew on my wing. There was no action,
only routine patrols, but even that was enough to show that he hadn’t
just been on a hot streak that first day. God, he could fly. Even without
the aerobatics, even with the most ordhiary moves, you could see it: that
intangible whatever-it-is that only a very few pilots have, that invests
every movement of the aircraft with a special grace.

“I swear,” Larabee said, “he looks good just sitting on the apron with the
engine off. Can he shoot too?”

“Going by his scores from training school,” I told her, “yes. Second in his
class in marksmanship.”

She’d brought up an important point. The one big shortcoming of the
light gun is that you can only use it for a maximum of two seconds at a
shot before it overheats; in fact there’s an automatic cutoff to keep excited
pilots from burning out the taxpayers’ property. So you can’t just spray a
general area; you’ve got to use it more like a rifle than a machine gun.
Which is why angel kills are so uncommon, and why a sharpshooter like
Carmody was a top ace while someone like Orozco, who could outfly him
forty ways but couldn’t shoot worth a damn, never scored.

“All that and a tight httle butt too,” Larabee said. “If he were a woman
Fd marry him.”

Carmody was back the following Monday. I spent most of the morning
in the office with him, going over various adminstrative details. Finally
he said, “So. This new man, Lewis. Any good?”

I told him. He whistled. “Really? I was going to take him up for a little
tryout, but I guess there’s no point. If he can stay with you, then he can
sure as hell stay with me.” He snorted. “Hell, if he can stay with you, I
probably can’t stay with him”

That was a stunner; I almost felt like looking around for a ventrilo-
quist. But then Carmody had been surprising me all morning. Fd been
ready for him to be an even bigger pain in the ass than usual, but instead
he seemed more hiiman, less full of hims elf Maybe getting what he was
aft«r had mellowed him a bit.

He leaned back in his chair and played a couple of arpeggios on the
desk with his fingertips. “WeU,” he said, “I think we’d better put him in
my flight, where I can keep an eye on him and teach him the ropes. I
know you’ll be glad to get Hardin back.”

Angel Kills

49

February 2005

Stealing the hot new jock for his flight, just as Fd expected. That was
more like the Carmody we all knew. It was a rehef, really. When the Car-
modys of the world quit acting like assholes it makes me nervous; you
have to have some constants in life, so you don’t lose your bearings.

And so Lewis became Carmody’s wingman, and for the next few weeks
they flew together, with Orozco and Robinson on their flank; and Lewis
quit being the new guy and became just another name on the roster
l»ard. Everybody settl^ down again into the old routine, one day pretty
much like another, not much excitement except now and then when the
wind got crazy. A Pitts isn’t an easy plane to land anyway — ^we used to
say that there were two kinds of Pitts pilots, those who had groimdlooped
and those who were about to — and in a gusting crosswind it can be al-
most imbearably fascinating. You’d never have guessed it, though, watch-
ing Lewis come in with the wind blasting across the runway, he made it
look not just easy but inevitable.

We did get one more angel attack, right after the first of the month, but
it didn’t amount to much. They materialized out over the Mesa area,
eight or so of them, converging on a little Fokker 70 regional flight com-
ing in from Albuquerque.

Delta flight weis flying escort. Tsosie got an angel almost immediately
and the others scattered and then started to vanish. They hadn’t had a
real shot at the Fokker anyway; the^d spawned too far astern of their
target. The whole thing was over in hardly any time.

“They weren’t very good,” Tsosie said at the debriefing. “They didn’t re-
aUy seem to know what they were doing. The only smart thing they did
was disappear when we came at them.”

Carmody looked at me. “Hm. The last ones were like that too, weren’t
they?” And then quickly, “Well, maybe not this bad.” After all, that had
been the engagement that made him a big hero; mustn’t imply that it had
been a turkey shoot.

He laughed suddenly. “You suppose they’ve made Phoenix their train-
ing grovmd? Where they send their new guys to get some experience? Boy,
did they ever pick the wrong place.”

A couple of weeks later the angels showed up again.

Bravo flight caught the first contact. It was just before noon and we
were escorting a Southwest 737 coming in from Tulsa. Off to the west Al-
pha flight was flying cover for a Fedex cargo plane taking off from the
south runway. That was a situation nobody liked, when there were two
planes to cover at the same time, and the controllers tried to avoid it but
now and then it happened.

Phoenix is a little over eleven himdred feet above sea level, so by the
time we picked up the 737 at five thousand he was already into his ap-
proach, wheels and fiaps coming down as we fanned out behind him and
a little above, Hardin and me to port and Sheridan and Foley to star-
board. I glanced down to check airspeed — just imder 150 knots, he was
coming in a little hot but they all do that now, trying to reduce the danger
period — and that was when the angels hit us.

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Hardin’s voice soxmded in the earphones: “Hueys, eleven o’clock low!”
I’d already seen them, though, spawning just astern of the 737’s port
wing, and Christ but there were more of them than Fd ever seen at one
time, the air was full of white wings and not all of them going for the 737
either, several were coming straight toward us.

I pushed the Pitts’s nose down and thumbed the safety cover off the fir-
mg button on top of the jo3retick and laid the gunsight’s center pip on an
angel coming at me head-on. The light beam flashed red on the middle of
its body and I flinched instinctively as I flew through the explosion, but
as usual there was no tm-bulence or heat or debris, or any other sign that
anything had ever been there.

The flash had momentarily blinded me, though, and I leveled off to let
my vision clear. I hit the com button to switch fi^uendes. “Alpha One,” I
called. “Alpha One, major attack. Can you assist?”

“AfBrmative,” Carmody came back immediately. “On oin* way, Bravo One.”

By now I could see again. What I cotild see was almost enough to make
me wish I couldn’t. The angels were swarming over the 737, torches al-
ready glowing. Off to my right Sheridan was rolling frantically, trying to
shake off an angel, whfle Foley himg on astern, his hght gun intermit-
tently flashing as he tried to pick the angel off.

I pulled the Pitts around and bore down on the 737, laying the sights
on an angel doing something right above the main passenger cabin. I didn’t
hit it but I must have come imcomfortably close; it gave a sudden jmnp
and flew upward, away from the 737. 1 watched the green LED below the
gimsight, waiting for it to tell me that the light gun was ready to use
again, but then Hardin yefled, “Bravo One, check six!”

I jerked around and looked back just in time to see a big white shape
closing in fast from astern. I said, “Shit!” and flipped the Pitts onto its back
and hauled back on the stick. At the bottom of ^e inverted loop I eased off
on the stick and let the Pitts straighten out into a forty-five-degree zoom
that I was pretty siu:« no angel could follow; they maneuvered like bats out
of hell but they didn’t have much of a dimb.

I looked badt but I didn’t see the angel, or Hardin either. What I did see
was a long dark gash across the skin of ^e Pitts’s fuselage, just ahead of
the vertical fin. My stomach did a slow roll; I hadn’t realized the bastard was
that close. A wonder it hadn’t cut a control cable, but everything seemed to
be working. But the evasive maneuver had taken me away from the main
fi^t. I said into the mike, “Bravo two, you are released for independent ac-
tion.” Right now protecting the 737 took priority over covering my butt.

And it was in serious need of protection. Climbing back up to rejoin the
action, I could see what was going on: the jetliner pilot had panicked and
was trying to abort the landing and run out. Which wasn’t necessarily a
bad move — ^he had more than enough power to outrun any angel ever
seen — ^but he was trying to climb, too, instead of holding altitude till he
got some speed up, and that was killing him. Or was going to kill him,
^ong with a bunch of other people, if we didn’t do something fast, be-
cause by now the angels were all over him.

I saw Hardin come in over the 737’s port wing and a moment later
there was a big yellow flash right over the wing root as an angel explod-

Angel Kills

51

February 2005

ed. Another Pitts was moving up finm astern — Sheridan or Foley, I coxildn’t
tell which — and I was almost within range too, but we weren’t going to be
enough.

And then, by God, just like the good guys in an old movie, Carmod 3 r’s
flight arrived. All of a sudden there were black-and-white shapes strew-
ing in head-on over the 737 and light guns flashing and two angels blew
almost simultaneously.

The others rose up off the 737 like vultures flapping up from a carcass.
Now was the time for them to do their vanishing act; but this bimch hadn’t
read the script or they’d said the hell with it. They went for the fighters.

I blew an angel off Robinson’s five o’clock and came aroimd to take a
long shot at another one as it danced away from Orozco’s fire. While the
light gun cooled and recharged I made a fake pass at a couple that were
closing in on Hardin, breaking up their attack and letting him climb
clear. By now there was a full-scale furball going on, biplanes and angels
whirling this way and that, light guns and torches flashing. It must have
been a stirring sight for anyone watching from the ground. Close up, it
was merely terrifying.

A white shape appeared in the mirror and I yanked the Pitts up in a
tight Immelmann. As I rolled upright I heard Carmod 3 r’s voice in the
headset: “Alpha Two, clear me.”

I looked aroimd to see what was going on, but that angel was still after
me and I had to do some tricky maneuvering to get rid of it. In the middle
of a hard flick roll, though, I heard Carmody again, much louder and
sharper: “Alpha Two, I say again, clear me!”

The angel dropped away at last and I leveled out just as Carmody’s voice
rose in a near-scream: “Alpha Two, for God’s sake get him off me!”

Escaping the angel had left; me well above everybody else, and the view
through the cockpit-floor vsdndows was too blimy to see an 3 d;hing. But I
leaned far over to my left and stuck my head over the coaming and
banked the Pitts a little to port and then I saw what was going on.

A big angel, maybe the biggest Td ever seen, was right over Carmody’s
tail and moving in. Carmody wasn’t taking any evasive action, and afl«r a
moment I saw why: his rear control siufaces were in blackened tatters. It
was surprising he could even fly straight.

Lewis was sitting just astern, his nose not more than fifty feet behind
Carmody’s tail. He didn’t seem to be doing anything else.

I ciirsed and whipped the Pitts over and down, leveling off a hundred
yards or so behind the two biplanes and cramming on full throttle to
overtake them. I couldn’t see the angel; I could only see a little of Car-
mody’s plane, because Lewis was in the way.

“Alpha Two,” I cafied, “break left.”

And, when he didn’t: “Lewis, get the fuck out of the way!”

He didn’t move. I hadn’t really thought he would.

I said some more bad words and pulled up, over Lewis’s plane, and
rolled the Pitts onto her back. I caught a brief glimpse of Lewis sitting ab-
solutely straight and stiU at the stick, his face hidden by his helmet’s vi-
sor. I didn’t really look at him, though; I was locked in on what was hap-
pening in front of him.

52

William Sanders

Asimov's

The angel was on top of Carmody’s plane now. Its wings hid the cockpit
area.

I pulled back on the stick, stiU flying inverted, to bring the gunsight to
bear on the angel. It w£is an easy shot, even from that angle. I thumbed
the trigger button, knowing it was too late.

The angel flashed and vanished. I rolled up and swung out to port,
looking down. I could see into Carmody’s cockpit now. Or what had been
Carmod/s cockpit. What was left in it now couldn’t really be called Car-
mody any more.

The other angels were starting to wink out now. OflF in the middle dis-
tance the 737 was climbing away, apparently undamaged.

Carmody’s plane continued to fly straight and level for another minute
or two. Then its starboard wingtips dropped and it fell away in a long spi-
ral dive. I thought at first it was going to hit the university campus area
but instead it smashed into the d^ bed of the Salt River.

After a little while I shook myself like a wet dog and spoke into the
mike again. ‘This is Bravo One,” I said. “All pilots return to base. 1 say
again; everybody go home.”

Lewis was already standing beside his plane, taking off his helmet,
when I came up bel^d him . He must have heard my boots on the con-
crete; he turned around to face me before I spoke.

“S 3 rstem malfrmction, Lewis?” I asked. I didn’t raise my voice. “Trouble
with the gun and the radio?”

He swallowed hard; you could see his Adam’s apple bobbing. He opened
his mouth but nothing came out. He swallowed again and then, in a kind
of dry croak, he said, ^o, sir.”

“Everything working properly?”

He nodded. His face was the color of cigarette paper.

“Thank you. That’s what I needed to know.”

I paused a moment, fighting for control. “Lewis,” I said, still keeping my
voice low, maybe not entirely steady. “Lewis, there’ll be a formal inquiry
into what happened up there and why. So you don’t have to tell me any-
thing. In fact fm officially advising you not to.”

He didn’t respond. I said, “And brides, just between us and strictly off
the record, I ali^dy know the story and 3 rou know I know it. “

I wouldn’t have thought he could go any paler, but he did. His lips
worked sotmdlessly. “I,” he finally got out. “1.”

I said very quietly, “Couldn’t do it, could you?”

The tears stmted coming then, trickling down on either side of his nose.
“An angel,” he said, nearly whispering. “An angel. I couldn’t, I, how, how
can anybody —

He ran diy again. I said, “I know, Lewis. Trust me, you’re not the first.”

1 turned and walked away, leaving him standing fliere alone. Maybe I
should have said something to try to make him feel better, but I didn’t re-
ally give a damn.

Off to the east you could just barely make out the smoke from Car-
mody’s plane, already thinning and drifling away in the desert wind. O

Angel Kilb

53

THE

TWO OLD
WOMEN

Kage Baker

Kage Baker's most recent Company novel. The Life of
the Worid to Come, has just been released. Ms. Baker
resides in Pismo Beach, California, with a domineer-
ing parrot In her latest story, she examines the long
reach of some very dominating women.

TT he gulls rose from the evening water, glided out serene and pointed,
each little pilot craning its neck to judge its way on sharp-curved wings.
So high was the sea that the bright foam was driven on the wind, and
cloudy air rolled in low above the little town. Backlit by the low sim, the
long combers threw back manes of white salt mist, thundering up the
sand. Boats rocked at anchor, battened down against autumn gales, and
she could hear their blocks and tackle clinking even up where she sat.
The old woman gazed down at the harbor.

She wore black, being a widow, a little stumpy lady like a wooden post.
When she had been a young wife, sitting in this same place, watching this
same harbor, there had still been ships moored in the green water, and
the horizon was edl masts and spars. Gradually the masts had given way
to steam, or diesel. Now only the sailboats bore canvas. Bright smnmer
days they s kimm ed out there beyond the island, or tacked to and fro in
the harbor. Not tonight.

Nobody ventured out tonight, except grandmothers in black. They went
to St. Anthony’s for evening mass, praying for their dead on All Souls’
Night.

The old woman, though, remained in her chair. She was not a grand-
mother.

She sat there still as the sim sank, as the pink twihght fell. When the
change in the wind came she felt it first, because her house sat high on
the last street. She turned, peering. It was a hot wind, coming over the
fields, and it smelled of mown hay and creek water. It flowed over her. It
rolled down on the harbor. The mist fled before it, retreated out to sea,
and the sea grew glassy and calm.

54

Asimov's

Her breath qmckened, though her expression of stolid patience did not
change. She rose, creaking, and went slowly into her house.

Inside her home was spartan and shahhy, but scrupulously clean. One
bare table with two chairs; one rug with a half-century’s path worn across
it, sun-faded. Only in one comer was there color, all aroimd the tall shelf
where the candles burned in their mby glass cups before the image of the
Blessed Mother. Here the old woman had set a vase of flowers, dark red ros-
es finm the schoolgroimd fence, yellow chrysanthemums finm her garden.

And here she had hung the pictures: the tinted photographs of a dis-
tant wedding day, a smiling bride and groom, a formal portrait of a hand-
some yoimg man in his best suit.

She took off her shawl, tied on an apron. For the next four hours she
worked very hard, poimding spices in a mortar, chopping greens, simmer-
ing broth. She roasted a formidable loin of pork with garlic, baked linguica
with peppers, and crumbled crisp bacon into the Caldo Verde, but she pre-
pared nothing with seafood of any kind. And in no dish did she use salt.

When things could be left; over low heat, she went into the front room
and laid the cloth carefully, set out the candlesticks. One place set, one
bottle of black-red wine from a cupboard, a single fine glass. Half an hour
before midnight, she set out the tureen, the platters of meat, the pan of
combread. She poured a single glass of wine. She lit the tapers. She took
another candle, a blue one, and set it in the window, carefolly tying the
curtains back.

Then she took off her apron, drew her shawl around her shoulders, and
walked down to the harhor.

The wind had not changed. The air was clear, the darkness full of little
flickering lights. It took her longer than it had used to, to get down to the
mole, but she arrived before midnight. She waited, staring out into the
night ocean.

At midnight she saw the white sail gliding in, as she had known it
would. The black water was smooth eis glass, the little fishing boat moved
over it without a soimd. She could see it clearly now. The timbers were
rotted and festooned with rank weed, the paint bubbled and chipped
away, and all the ironwork risen like biscuit with rust. But the sail was
white and whole, belled out with phantom wind, bright with phantom
simhght. His face was bright, too, where he sat at the tiller.

He was still yovmg.

He brought his craft up to the mole easily, tossed a loop of seaweed
aroimd a bollard and moored; stepped lightly out, with his duffel over his
shoulder. He leaned down to kiss her. His hps moved as though he were
speaking to her, gleeful and excited, but he wasn’t making a sound.

He chattered away in perfect silence, all the way back through the
town. He outpaced her easily, on his yoimg long legs, and more than once
had to stop and wait for her at a turn in the street. He looked a little puz-
zled at her slowness.

But they got to the top of the hill at last. He boimded up the steps of
their house, opened the door for her, slung down his duffel and stood rub-
bing his hands together, eyeing the food greedily. As she closed the door,
he was already pulling off his jacket and knitted cap. Where he dropped

The Two Old Women

55

February 2005

them they became a soaked mass of rotten wool, and the duffel was black
and sodden too.

He hitched his suspenders, sat down at the table, rolled up his long
sleeves. Grinning, he helped himself to the food. Knife in one &t, fork in
the other, he ate heartily, steadily, and set the fork down only to gulp the
red wine. She sat across from him and watched. He smeared melting but-
ter on the com bread. He savored the pork crackling. Once or twice he
looked around on the table, himting for the salt; but as it wasn’t there, he
shrugged and went on eating.

When he had done, when the white candles had burned down a quarter
of their length, he pushed his empty plate back and said something to
her. He winked broadly. She rose and went into the bedroom, and he fol-
lowed her.

There her young heart went out of her body, and the old woman sat
weeping in a chair watching the young woman undress, and slip into bed.
He shucked off his boots, his clones — ^they fell to pieces on the floor, and
water spread there in a dark stain on the rag rug. He climbed into bed
with the phantom girl, and she lay in his arms.

F£ir into the night, as the yovmg husband and wife slept, the old woman
rose from her chair. She was moving more stiffly now, and her eyes were
swollen from so much weeping, so she felt her way as though she were
blind. She gathered up the ruined garments in her apron, carried them
out to the garden, and laid them at the base of a tree. She collected the
food from the table and carried it out there too. She got a shovel. Gasping,
her old heart laboring, she dug a hole under the tree and buried the rags,
the remains of the feast.

Then she went back into the house. She took a box from a cupboard and
carried it outside again. Walking the perimeter of the garden fence, she
laid down a line of white powder, very carefully. When she had drawn an
xmbroken circle aroimd her home, she went back indoors. The sky was
just getting light in the east.

She blew out the candles. The smoke rose, coiled.

The other old woman, in her house down the hill, woke a little while
later. She dressed herself and, kneeling at her comer shrine, said a
rosary. Sometimes her gaze was on the Blessed Mother’s kind inscmtable
face; sometimes on the firamed photograph of the old man, sitting in aff^r-
dinner ease with a grandchild on either knee, and the ash falling frum his
cigar caught by the camera in midair forever.

But as she told her beads, the other old woman became aware of a
sound. It could be heard above the diesel motors rumbling to life in the
harbor, the raucous screaming of gulls following the trawlers out. After a
moment she identified it as someone hammering, irregularly.

It continued as she rose and went to the kitchen. It counterpointed the
rocking of the wooden bowl as she kneaded dou^. It was still going, three
taps and a pause, three taps and a pause, as she sliced potatoes and set
them to fiy in bacon grease.

At last she turned from the stove and went to the window above the
sink. Parting the checked curtain, she squinted in the direction of the

56

Koge Baker

Asimov's

sunrise. There was her sister’s house, on its high ridge. She peered,
rubbed her eyes, retrieved a pair of spectacles from her apron pocket and
shpped them on. She saw a man on a ladder, putting new shingles on her
sister’s roof. The sun, just now reaching him, Ht him up in gold.

The other old woman nodded in approval, and went back to the stove.

After a moment, though, she frowned. She looked out the window
again, wiping her hands on her apron. At last she turned down the heat
and left the kitchen, walking through the house.

Marco’s bed was empty, neatly made, because he was away at boot
camp. Danny was still asleep on his side of the room, snoring. The other
old woman shook her head at the sport jacket lying where it had been
thrown, the cigarette butts on the floor, the guitar. She picked up his dis-
carded socks and went on.

Margaret Mary was in her room, soimd asleep imder the sultry gaze of
Elvis on her tacked-up posters, and the other old woman spared her no
more than a glance in before moving on. She looked in on the twins by
habit, and caught them awake and clandestinely eating Halloween candy.
One basilisk stare was all it took and they scrambled back into bed, hud-
dling there as she retrieved tiny imderwear and socks from their hamper.

Celia woke when she opened the door, though John slept through it.
The other old woman left without a word, and had the first laundry load
going when Ceha shuffled into the kitchen in her bathrobe.

The hammering was still going on. Tap tap tap, pause.

“The wind’s changed. It’s coming from inshore, can you feel it? Going to
be hot today,” said Ceha.

“Mm,” said her mother.

“Mama,” said Celia, clearing her throat, “You don’t have to fry up so
much linguica in the morning. The kids want Com Pops.”

“Danny likes it,” said her mother. “Did you teh Rosahe to get Jerry to
fix Tia Adela’s roof?”

“No, Mama.” Ceha yawned, and got a can of coffee down from the cup-
board. “I told you, Danny’s going to do it. He promised me.”

“Well, somebody’s up there now,” said her mother, parting the curtain
once again. Ceha blinked, came and stared.

“Who’s thatr

“Not Danny,” said her mother.

“Huh,” said Ceha, troubled. But she went to the breadbox, methodical-
ly laid out sandwiches for the school lunches: Peanut butter for the twins,
iWa salad for Margaret Mary. Three brown paper bags, three oranges,
three dimes for milk . Rituals for the hving.

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your favorite retailer, we want to help. First let the store manager know that
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The Two Old Women

57

February 2005

Not another word was said on the subject of Tia Adela’s roof, as the
household was fed, as the children were sent to school, as John went to
work at the boatyard, as Danny was coaxed out of bed, bullied into eating
linguica and onions despite his hangover and sent on his way to the new
job at the fish market, as the clean wet clothes went out on the line to dry.

But when the house was quiet and well-ordered again, the other old
woman looked meaningfully at her daughter and pulled on her shawl.
Celia followed her out the door, fanning herself with a piece of newspaper.

“Mama, it’s hot,” she complained. “You don’t have to wear that thing.”
But her mother ignored her, and they were silent the rest of the way up
the hill to Tia Adela’s house.

The hammering was still going on. They could see the edge of the lad-
der poking up over the roofline, but they could not see the workman until
they walked out to the edge of the street and turned.

The other old woman said nothing, but she made the sign of the cross
involuntarily. Celia shaded her eyes against the sun with her newspaper.
“I’m sweating to death. Mama,” she muttered, studying the wor kman .
Nobody she knew, though he was certainly good-looking: long lean back
bronz^ by the sim, a mermaid tattooed on his right emu. His hair was a
little long; his wool trousers were a little tight.

“Hello?” she called. “Mister?”

He did not reply. He did not even turn his head; just reached over and
took the last tarpaper shingle fi*om its box, and tacked it in place.

“Hey!” Celia call^, when he paused to wipe his forehead. He did not ap-
pear to notice her. His lips were moving as though he were singing to him-
self^ though he was not making a soimd. He dropped his h amm er, climbed
briskly down the ladder and walked out of sight behind the house.

“I wonder if he’s deaf?” said Celia. “TU bet that’s what it is. Mama. She’s
hired one of those handicapped guys from St. Vincent de Paul’s, huh?
Danny would have gotten around to it,” she added plaintively. “Gee, now I
feel bad.”

Her mother did not reply.

“Mama, maybe we should knock on the door, see if Tia Adela’s okay,”
said Celia. “Some of those guys are a little crazy, you know?”

“No,” said her mother. “We’re going home.”

She said it in such a way Celia knew there was no point arguing. They
walked back down the hill.

Once or twice, at night, the hot wind brought the lowing of cattle from
the big ranch far up the canyon. By day, the twins and Margaret Mary
sweated in their blue woolen school miiforms. Rosalie, miserable in the
heat, fled her tiny apartment and walked up the street to sit on the porch
swing with her mother. The radio blared fi'om the house behind them.

“Did you throw up every damn morning like this?” she asked queru-
lously, raising her voice to be heard over Perry Como.

“Only with you and Marco,” Ceha rephed. “All I could eat for a month
was green grapes and crackers. It’ll get better, sweetie.”

“I sure hope so,” sighed Rosahe. “Were you bothered by smells, too? I
opened a can of sardines, and I swear I nearly died.”

58

Kage Baker

Asimov's

“Good thing Jerry’s not in port right now, then,” joked her mother, but
Rosalie did not smile.

“I miss him already,” she said, staring out at the sea in resentment. “I
had bad dreams last night. It’s too late in the year to go out so far, don’t
you think?”

“It’s still smnmer,” said Celia, waving at the electric fan. “S umm er in
November, for God’s sake. And they have to make money while they can,
you know.”

“It’s not fair,” said Rosalie. Her mother looked at her sidelong.

“You married him,” she said. “I told you, didn’t I? Marry a Souza, an
Avila or a Machado, and half the year he’ll be out there on a trawler. And
the other half of the year your house will stink like fish.”

“Maybe he can get a job at the boatyard with Daddy,” said Rosalie.
Celia made a noncommittal noise. Rosalie lifted her head to watch a leaf
fioating down the wind. Her gaze fell on the house against the skyline.

“Don’t tell me you got Danny to paint Tia Adela’s house!” she said.

Celia looked unhappy.

“No. She has some boy from St. Vincent de Paul’s up there, or maybe
the Salvation Army.”

“It’s looking really nice,” Rosalie observed, standing to see better. “See,
all those hedges have been cut back. Somebody took down that big dead
tree! Jerry was going to do that for her, when he got around to it,” she
added, a little imcomfortably.

Celia shrugged. Rosalie’s face brightened.

“Gee, do you think she’s getting it fixed up to sell? Like, maybe she’s go-
ing to move into a home? Maybe you could talk to her about giving it to
Jerry and me instead. We really need the room.”

“I don’t talk much to Tia Adela,” said CeHa. “Anyway, sweetie, it’s her
house.”

“But we’re young” Rosalie groaned. “What does she need with a whole
house?”

That night the wind changed again.

The temperature dropped. A long swell rolled in from the sea, and by
midnight the siuf was booming on the mole. Mist rolled in too, white im-
der the stars. It brought the smell of salt, of seawrack and low tide.

Tia Adela, dozing in her chair, started awake. The young man was sit-
ting up in bed, staring at the window. Without even looking back at the
girl, he slipped out of bed and drew on the clothes she had laid out for
him, the wool and linen that was yellowed but none the worse for having
spent a half-century packed in a trunk. He opened the window and drew
in a deep breath of sea air.

Turning, he walked out of the bedroom. Tia Adela followed him as far
as the front door. He gave her an apologetic grin as he slipped out, ran
lightly down the steps. A pink quarter-moon hung low in the west, send-
ing a faint track across the water. He paced down the walk as far as her
fi*ont gate. But, extending his hand to open it, he faltered; drew back. Two
or three tries he made, and couldn’t seem to reach it.

He looked down, at the trail of white stuff that crossed his path. He be-

The Two Old Women

59

February 2005

gan to walk along it, seeking a way through, and followed its imbroken
line all aroimd the house, dodging through her garden, stiunbling around
behind the woodshed and the blackberry hedge, before he arrived at the
front walk again.

He turned to look up, pleading silePtly with Tia Adela. She shook her
head. Shoulders sagging, he came back<.up the walk and climbed the
steps. He collapsed into a chair. She brought the wine and poured out a
glass for him. He drank it down. It seemed to make him feel better.

In the morning he went out and spaded up her vegetable garden,
whistling to himself in silence. She watched him from the window. Now and
again she raised her head to look at the sIqt, where far to the north a thin sil-
ver wall of cloud was advancing. The sea was growing rough; it had turned
a milky and ominous green, mottled here and there with purple weed.

“The glass is falling,” stated the other old woman. Nobody paid any at-
tention to her except Margaret Mary, who came to look at the barometer.
Margaret Mary wore glasses, braces, had frizzy hair and freckles. She was
the sort of girl who would be genuinely interested in barometer readings.

“Somebody ought to go,” RosaHe was insisting. “She could be lying dead
up there, for £ill anybody knows. Maybe she’s had a stroke or something,
and the man is some hobo who’s just moved in. Maybe he’s stealing from her.”

“I guess we ought to be sure she’s okay,” Celia said, glancing uneasily
at her own mother.

“Don’t you think somebody needs to check on her, Nana Amelia?” Ros-
alie demanded. “And if she’s okay, well, that gives you an opportunity to
talk about leaving the house to Jerry and me.”

Nana Amelia gave her a dark look. “It’s not a lucky house,” she said.

“Why don’t we all go?” suggested Celia. “That way, if he’s trouble, we
can send Margaret Mary for the cops.”

“Okay!” said Margaret Mary.

Nana Amelia sighed, but she drew on her shawl.

They set off up the street. The three women walked in close formation,
arms crossed tightly under their breasts. Margaret Mary followed be-
hind, hands thrust into the pockets of her school sweater, staring up at
the clouds and therefore stumbling occasionally.

“Those are cumulonimbuses,” she said. “And, uh, stratocumuluses. I
think we’re going to get a heck of a storm.”

Nana Amelia nodded grimly.

They came to the front gate and looked up. The house was tidy, trim as
a ship, with its new coat of paint. The doorknob and the brass lamp had
been polished until they gleamed. The weeds had been cleared from ei-
ther side of the walkway and the chrysanthemums staked up, watered,
all swelling buds and yellow stars.

The women stared. As they stood there, Tia Adela came arovmd the side
of the house, carrying a basketful of apples. She halted when she saw
them; but the young man who followed her did not seem to see. He simply
stepped around her, and proceeded up the steps. He was carrying a dusty
box full of mason jars and lids. He went into the house.

“What do you want?” said Tia Adela.

60

Kage Baker

Asimov's

“We came up to see if you were all right,” said Celia reproachfully. “Tia
Adela, who’s that boy?”

Tia Adela looked at her sister.

“You really shouldn’t have strangers up here, Tia Adela,” said Rosahe.
“We were thinking, maybe you shouldn’t live all alone nowadays, you
know what I mean?”

“Yes,” said Tia Adela. “I thought so too.”

“And I was looking in the phone book, and there’s this nice place called
Wyndham Manor in San Luis, where they’d take — ”

“You have offended God!” shouted Nana Amelia hoarsely. She was
trembling.

Celia and Rosalie turned to gape at her.

“I don’t care,” said Tia Adela. “And He has said nothing. But she’s angry,
oh, yes.” And she nodded out at the sea, wild and sullen under slaty cloud.

“Mama, what’s going on?” said Ceha.

Nana Ameha pointed up at the window. The young man w£is standing
behind it, gazing out at the dark sea with an expression of heartbreaking
longing.

“That is her husband,” she said.

There was a moment’s stimned silence, and then Ceha said, very gen-
tly; “Mama, Tio Benedito has been dead since before I was bom. Remem-
ber? I think we’d better go home now, okay?”

Her mother gave her such a look of outrage that she drew back invol-
untarily.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Nana Ameha. She stormed forward and up the
steps, and Ceha and Rosahe ran after her, protesting. Tia Adela shrugged
and foUowed slowly. Margaret Meiry came with her.

The yoimg man at the window didn’t seem to notice the women burst-
ing into the room. Nana Ameha went straight to the wedding photograph
on the waU, grabbed it down and thrust it in Ceha’s face.

“There! Her Bento. See? Dead as a stone. He went out past Cortes
Shoals after rockfish, too late in the year. A lot of fools went out. The
Adelita, the Meiga, the Luisa ah went down in the gale, even the big Dun-
bartonl So many dead washed up on the beach, they loaded them on a
mule wagon. Bento, they didn’t find. The sea kept him. And she never for-
gave God!” Nana Ameha tmned in wrath to her sister, who had come in
now and set her basket of apples on the table.

Ceha, who had taken up the photograph, looked from it to the young
man by the window. Rosahe peered over her shoulder.

“Mama, this is crazy,” said Ceha. “Things like this don’t happen.”

“So . . . he’s a ghost?” said Margaret Mary, peering at Bento. “And he’s
come back to her? Just like he was? Wow! Only . . .” She looked sadly at
her great-aunt. “Only, you’re old, Tia Adela.”

Tia Adela folded her arms defiantly. “I know,” she said. “But I have him
back. She can cah him, she can beat herself white on the rocks, but she
can’t climb up here. He and I wih stay safe in my house, let her gale blow
hard as it wih.”

“Who is this other lady she’s talking about?” Rosahe murmured to her
mother.

The Two Old Women

61

February 2005

“Adela, don’t be stupid!” said Nana Amelia. “You know what will happen.”

“This Wyndheun Manor you called, how much does it cost?” Ceha in-
quired of her daughter sotto voce.

“Look, whoever you are, you’d better go now,” Rosalie said, turning to
Bento, “tk) you hear me? Go back to St. Vincent’s or wherever she hired
you from.”

He made no reply. She strode across the room to him. “Hey! Can you
hear me?”

She grabbed him by the arm and then she screamed, and staggered
back. Celia was beside her at once, catching her before she fell. Bento had
not moved, had not even tinned his head.

“Honey, sweetie, what is it?” Celia cried.

Rosalie was gulping for breath, her eyes wide with horror. She was
holding her hand out stiffly. Her mother closed her own hand around it
and recoiled; for Rosalie’s hand was as cold as though she’d been holding
a block of ice, and as wet, and gritty with sand.

“Should I go get Father Halloway?” asked Margaret Mary.

“No,” said the women in unison.

“I don’t see why you’re all so mad, anyhow,” said Margaret Mary. “I
think it’s neat. If we can really bring the dead back, so we won’t be lone-
ly — ^well — ^wouldn’t that be great? You could still have Grandpa to talk to,
Nana! Haw’d you do it, Tia Adela?”

Tia Adela said nothing, watching Bento. He was pacing back and forth
before the window.

“She made a Soul Feast,” said Nana Amelia. “Didn’t you, Adela?”

“You mean she just cooked some food?” Margaret Mary cried. “Is that
all it takes? Can anybody do that?”

“Not everybody,” said Tia Adela, curling her lip. “And food is not enough.
There must be love that is stronger than death.”

“Oh,” said Margaret Mary.

“It’s wrong, child,” said Nana Ameha. “The dead don’t belong to us! And
they want their rest. Look at him, Adela, does he look happy? You have to
let him go.”

“How are you keeping him here?” asked Rosalie in a little voice, the
first time she had spoken since she’d learned the truth. Ceha, sitting with
her arm around her, shook her head.

“Sweetie, don’t ask —

“Borax,” said Tia Adela.

“What?”

“Borax,” Tia Adela repeated, with a certain satisfaction. “I poured a line
of it all along the fence, and he can’t cross it.”

“Jesus Christ, Tia Adela, you put down borax powder for ants, not
ghosts!” yelled Ceha.

“It’s a^ah, isn’t it?” said Tia Adela. “The opposite of salt. So it breaks
the spell of the sea.”

“Um . . . but alkah isn’t the opposite of salt, Tia Adela,” said Margaret
Mary, wringing her hands. “It’s the opposite of acid. We learned that in
chemistry class.”

62

Kage Baker

Asimov's

Tia Adela shrugged. “It still works, doesn’t it?”

A gust of wind hit the windows, whirling brown leaves. A gull swept in
close, hung for a moment motionless at eye level before gliding away
downwind. Rosalie shivered.

“No, Fm not letting him go,” Tia Adela went on, in a harder voice. “Fifty
years Fve sat up here, and I got old, yes, and she’s stUl beautiful; is that fair?”

“There wiU be a price to pay,” said Nana Amelia.

Tia Adela did not reply. Bento sighed, making no sound, but far out and
high up a gull mourned.

“Go away now,” said Tia Adela. “Fve got his dinner to fix.”

Rain advanced like a white curtain. The leaden sea turned silver before
it vanished in the squall. One by one the trawlers came in, fleeing for
their lives, ramming the pier in their haste to moor. The crews scrambled
ashore dripping, dodging the waves that were breaking over the pier. A
police cruiser pidled up to the mole with its red light flashing, and cops in
black slickers set sawhorses across the walkway.

Nobody was fool enough to go out there, though. The harbormaster
sighed, looking at the moored sailboats; half of them would be on the
beach, or matchwood, by morning.

The cars were pulling up now to the foot of the pier, and women and old
men were getting out, squinting into the flying rain, leaning over as they
walked into the wind. Soaked before they reached the harbormaster’s of-
fice, they came one after another and asked: Was there news of the Med-
ford? Was there news of the Virginia Marie?

They came away with faces like stone, and went back to their cars and
sat, steaming up the windows, except for a couple of the old men, who
splashed away through puddles to the Mahogany Bar and could be
ghmpsed thereafter at the window, looking like fish in a lit aquarium,
drinking steadily as they waited.

Night closed down. One by one the headlights came on, pointed out to
sea. When the waves began to break over the edge of the parking lot, the
cops came and made the cars move back; but they did not leave, and they
did not turn out the headlights.

Then there was a confusion of shouting, of horns and red fights, and

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The Two Old Women

63

February 2005

Margaret Maiy started awake as the car doors were flung open. She had
to wipe her steamed glasses clear before she could see her mother and fa-
ther hurrying through the rain, splashing through the long beams of
light, calling alter Rosalie who was sprinting ahead as fast as she had
ever gone in her life.

And beyond her — Margaret Mary took her glasses off, wiped them
again and stared openmouthed. Impossibly huge, bizarrely out of context
with her prow almost on the asphalt, the S^rginia Marie lay beached and
rolling. Men clung to her, shouting, staring at the sohd world of automo-
biles and houses and warmth, just within reach and terrible yards away,
as the black water, the white water kept breaking over them, and the rain
glittered and ran.

Sirens howled; a big ambulance pulled up, and another pohce car. Peo-
ple were crowding too close for Margaret Mary to see much, until the
ropes were rigged and the rescued began to arrive on shore, huddled at
once in blankets.

The crowd parted. Mary Margaret saw a blanketed man with his wet
hair plastered down, and he was talking earnestly to Rosalie. Rosalie put
her hands to her face and screamed. She just kept screaming, imtil at last
John lifl»d her in his arms and dragged her back to the car, with Celia
nmning after weeping. Margaret Mary wept too, withdrawing into her
seat. Through her tears she mmnbled the Oiir Father; though a cold adult
voice in her head told her it was a httle late for that.

“Daddy, what happened?” she begged, as he thrust Rosalie into the
back seat beside her and slammed the door. For all anybody noticed her
or answered, she might have been a ghost. Celia reached into the back
and gripped Rosalie’s hands, and held on to them all the way up the hill
to the house.

It was an hour later before she heard the story from her father, as he
sat in the kitchen in his bathrobe, over strong coffee with whiskey in it:
how the Virginia Marie's radio mast had gone by the board, how she had
been making her way back, how they had come upon the Medford taking
on water and listing, how they had managed to take her crew off; and how
Jerry had just gotten the last man aboard and was pulling in the lifeline
when he had fallen, and dropped between the two hulls like a stone.

There had been no sign of him, in the rain and the night, and he might
have answered their calls — one crewman swore he had heard him an-
swer, and had thrown out a life preserver in that direction — ^but the wind
was so loud they couldn’t be certain. Then suddenly the Virginia Marie
had her own problems, and no man aboard had thought to come home
again. Yet —

“Only Jerry lost,” said her father, and had a gulp of his coffee. “Can you
beat that?”

“But he might have made it,” Margaret Mary protested. “Maybe he
caught the life preserver. Maybe theyTl find him tomorrow when it’s light!”

“Yeah,” said John wearily. “Sure, honey.”

Margaret Mary looked out between the curtains, up through the night

at the warm fight glowing in Tia Adela’s window.

* ♦ ♦

64

Kage Baker

Asimov's

She slept on the couch in her clothes, because they had put Rosalie to
sleep in her bed. Just after seven she rose, put on her glasses and stood
at the front window, blinking out at the day. The rain had stopped, the
wind dropped, though it was still gusting cold fitfully. The 'Virginia Marie
was working apart fast, and there was a big crack in the parking lot
where her prow had acted like a wedge on the asphalt. More yellow
sawhorses blocked it off. Sailboats were lying all along the tideline, and
one actually had come to rest on the boardwalk.

Turning, slipping off her glasses to rub her gritty eyes, she heard sud-
den footsteps from the hall.

Rosalie was up and dressed, pulling on one of her father’s coats. Nana
Amelia was right behind her, looking unstoppable. After them Celia
came, hopping as she tried to put on her shoes while following.

“Sweetie, you need to stay here and rest — ” she entreated, but Rosalie
ignored her mother.

“Where are you going?” asked Margaret Msuy.

“Where do you think?” seud Rosalie, in a furious voice, flinging open the
door and marching out, as Nana Amelia pulled on her shawl.

Margaret Mary stuck her feet in her saddle oxfords and clumped hur-
riedly along after them, running to catch up.

The rain had packed down the line of borax before Tia Adela’s gate, but
had not washed it away. Tia Adela and her husband were out in the gar-
den. She had filled another basket Avith windfall apples, and he was saw-
ing loose a bough that had been broken by the storm. He did not look up
as Rosalie threw the gate wide and shrieked,

“Let him go!”

Tia Adela lifted her head, gazed at them. She looked down at the har-
bor, where the Virginia Marie wallowed broken in the surf.

“TTiis has come of your wickedness, you see?” Nana Amelia told her
sternly. “And her child needs a father, Adela.”

“Please, Tia Adela! For the baby’s sake!” Celia implored.

Tia Adela looked hard at Rosahe, who was scufGng through the line of
borax with all her might. She grimaced, looking for a long moment as
thou^ she’d tasted poison.

“That won’t do it,” she sighed. She went to the shed and got a broom.
Casting a long regretful look over her shoulder at Bento, she walked to
the fi*ont gate.

“Stand back,” she said. They shufQed out of her way and she swept the
borax aside, in a white fan like a bird’s wing.

The sim broke through, a long beam brilliant and white, whiter still for
the seabirds that rose in a circling cloud through it, crying and calling.

“Look at the rainbow!” cried Margaret Mary, and they all looked up at
the great arch that spanned the harbor, in colors so intense they nearly
hurt the e3re.

When they looked down again, they saw the car pulling up.

It was black, and long, and so, so expensive. The dashboaift was inlaid
with patterns in mother-of-pearl, all shells and mermaids and scalloped
waves; the upholstery was sea-green brocade. The chrome gleamed as
thou^ it were wet.

The Two Old Women

65

February 2005

And she who sat at the wheel was exquisitely dressed, tapping with her
ivory fingers on the wheel, just a little impatient. Though her face was
that of a skull, her very bones were so beautiful, so elegant, as to inspire
self-loathing in any woman with a face of flesh (too fat!).

She hit the horn. It sounded like a foghorn.

The mortal women heard the quick footsteps behind them, felt the ice-
cold touch as Bento shoved through them in his haste to go. He was smil-
ing wide as he got into the car, didn’t so much as look back once. He closed
the door. The car glided away down the hill without making a sound. The
women stood there, looking afl«r it.

“Bitch,” they said in rmison, and with feeling.

But before noon the Coast Guard had picked up Jerry finm the swamped
and drifting derehct Medford, that he had been able to scramble aboard
somehow, and they brought him home to Rosalie’s waiting arms.

Seven years later, though, in another November, his luck ran out. The
Star of Lisbon was lost with all hands. The Old Woman of the Sea is a
poor loser, but she is a worse winner.

Rosalie wore black, and once or twice a week climbed the long street to
Tia Adela’s house, carrying Maria and tugging little Jerry by the hand.
Jerry sat in the middle of ^e faded rug with his toy tractors and trucks,
r unnin g them to and 6*0 while Maria napped, and Rosalie learned how to
make the old dishes: Caldo Verde with bacon, linguica with sweet pep-
pers, garlic pork roast.

And she waited for the wind to change. O

U/hy did theij dam the riper of time some my upstream?
How did theij dam time itself? Maybe they fouybt — w;ill fi^ht —
a probability war, striping to block some streams of possibility
and reirtforce others. A myriad dams miyht be made. Sabotaye
may ensue, and nVal dams, to divert events a <^iffereMt way.

The result is that time {iooded backward caXastro^\\\cal\\^,
causing such eddaes and w\\\r\^oo\s and deeps and shallows.

A billion people lioetl their ivhole lioes in mere seconds
and eKpired In ignorance. Others were flotsam on the flooti,
seeing cities and ciuilizations rise and fall around them.

Caught up in an eddy, a mother-to-be found herself
kneeliny at the yraoe of her yreat-yranddauyhter. Stretched
by the current, a soldier shot dead in a two-mnute war
suckled for centuries at his mother's tit By the time he hit
the yround a ylacier u^as enyulfiny the battlefield.

And me? And me? She yreu; instantly old
In my shrinkiny arms as I became a child ayain,
held tiyht by a blind crone. I lead her alony
by her u;rinkled hand, my yrandmother so it seems,
u;ho still u^hispers endearments toothlessly

As we make our way thouyh the ruins of millennia,
u;recked rude huts, tumbled temples of marble,
fallen castles, tu;isted yirders of skyscrapers,
and so much mud ivhere at least food yrows,
in search of an Eden from tohere time may haoe spruny,

A fountain of youth to restore to her some
of my univanted juvenility. But this Earth
of multiple eras is vast survivors are feu;
and mostly insane, and yesterday for the first time
I sau;, to my horror, the corpse of a dinosaur.

— Mike Allen and Ian Watson

PARACHUTE

KID

Edd Vick

Edd Vick's previous appearance in Asimov's was
"First Principles" in September of 2003. He continues
to work for the adoption agency through which he
and his wife, SF author Amy Thomson, adopted. In his
latest tale, he takes a look at what it means to be a
person who just drops in.

I p^ged the big black woman as trouble immediately. She had that oh-so-
concemed look people only get when they're about to screw you over. She
came into our trig class wil^ Principal Peters and walked directly to Mr.
Brown’s desk. They went into a huddle just as Lee snapped the paper foot-
ball Fd folded past my ear, and held out two thmnbs-up. I wasn’t watching
because I wanted to keep one eye on that huddle and the other on my path
to the window. I figured it was the second fastest way out of the room, in
case it was me they were afier. The fastest Fd reserve for a real emergency.

“He scores!” Lee followed with that soimd that’s like a faraway crowd
cheering.

“Lee Tsien Chen,” said Brown, pointing our way. “Second row.”

Lee froze. The woman lumber^ over and he used both hands to pull
himself out of his desk and to his feet, looking down. If there’s one hard
and fast rule about dealing with adults, that’s it. Never look them in the
eye. It makes you harder to call on, it pisses them ofi^ and you don’t have
to look at their wrinkled skin. Three for the price of one.

“Hello, Lee,” she said. “My name is Margaret Carter. Fm with the — ”
She saw me watching, and lowered her voice. I stiD caught it. “U.S. Citi-
zenship and Immigration Services. Come with me, please.”

Lee shot me a look.

The USCIS. I knew she was trouble.

Lee didn’t show up the rest of the day. I hustled to my bike and rode to
his apartment, part of a large complex that was aU empty fields not long
ago. He and his “aunt” live clear on the other side of C^ta Mesa, not far
firom John Wa3me International. Fd like to have a car to drive to high
school, but there’s too much paperwork involved; too many wa3rs I could
screw it up. On a bike, Fm ju^ another kid.

68

Asimov's

His paper auntie opened the door and said something in Chinese. I took
it for an invitation and entered. As usual, it took my eyes a minute to ad-
just. The bright sun outside would have a hard time competing with the
dazzle of red and gold inside Lee’s home. They’re lucky colors, and his
parents were more than wealthy enough to buy him the best of every-
thing, so long as it was in shades of gold and scarlet.

I walked to his room. The apartment always smells wonderful, p£u*t
open-air spice market, part fishing boat. I often eat there.

Lee was in his room, asleep on top of the Lakers bedspread. Weird
thing: he’d shaved his head. I saw clumps of hair all around the bed as I
was waking him.

“Sam! Aw, Jesus.” There were tear tracks down his face, and he coughed
a couple of times. “She’s going to send me back.”

“Back” would be bad. China was as familiar to him as Mars was. He’d
been in Southern California for ten years.

“We’ll get you hidden away,” I said. “Stay with me tonight.”

He didn’t argue, he never does. He just threw a few things into his
backpack and grabbed his keys. On the way out the door, he said some-
thing short to his aimtie. She shrugged.

We threw his pack and my bike into his gold BMW and peeled out.

“What’s with the hair?” I asked, shoving the cap forward on his head to
rub at his bare scalp. He swerved back and forth, trying to swat at my
hand.

“We do that to get ready for tests,” he said. “SATs are next month.”

“We?”

“My people.”

“Oh, suddenly you’re all Asian.”

“Fuck you.”

I guessed what he’d been thinking. If he was going to be sent back to
China as an “rmaccompanied minor,” at least he could look like he’d been
studying. Like he hadn’t been staying out all night with me at the twenty-
four-hour noodle shops in Chinatown. “Tell me about that Immigration
woman.”

“She’s a bitch, wants to send me back, end of story.” If the steering
wheel hadn’t been made of metal, it would’ve snapped in his hands. Then,
softer, he said, “Something tipped them off. They fbimd out both my par-
ents are in China, and that the woman Fm with isn’t a relation.”

“Shit.” I looked out the window as he tinned onto my street.

“Another couple of months and I would’ve graduated.”

That’s when I saw the guy.

“Lee! Don’t stop in fiunt. Drive around the comer.”

He was startled, but used to doing what I said. We parked in the alley
behind my place. Once in the house, I ran upstairs and into the fi'ont bed-
room. Getting down on all fours, I crawled to the window and raised my
head imtil I could just see over the sill.

In our neighborhood, we keep to ourselves, nodding at each other while
mowing our tiny lawns or taking out the trash, but not speaking. We aU
know each other, though, and I didn’t recognize the guy sitting at the bus
stop across the street. He obviously didn't know that buses had stopped

Parachute Kid

69

February 2005

coming through here years ago. The graffiti would’ve tipped him off, if it
hadn’t been everywhere else too.

He was watching my house. I figured he was another USCIS agent.

Lee crawled up next to me and looked out. “Why’s he got a raincoat? Is
it dripping?”

A wet raincoat? Now, in Orange County? It hadn’t rained in weeks.
“Shit!” I jumped to my feet and started waving my hands, but just then
an SUV drove by, and when it was past, he was gone.

“Where’d he go?” asked Lee. There was no place the guy could have run
to fast enough for us to miss him .

He’d twisted, but I wasn’t going to tell Lee that. I hadn’t told him who I
really was in the four years since we’d met. Now was no time to start.

The next morning, I was up before Lee and scratching together a break-
fast when somebody knock^ at the fi*ont door, then rang the bell. I ig-
nored it. Fd decided to pretend nobody was home while Lee was here. I
grabbed plates and silverware, setting two places.

I was finishing up a h^llf-hour later when the knock came again, then
the doorbell. Same pattern, so 1 figured it was the same person. I ignored
it, and carried my dishes to the counter a few min utes later.

There, looking in the window over the sink, was USCIS Agent Carter. I
dropped my glass. She smiled and gestured for me to open the kitchen door.

I figured I could always twist if she was here to take me into custody.
Well, try to, anyway. So I opened the door.

“Hello. You’re Samuel Nelson?”

“Yes,” I said. “I saw you yesterday.”

“My name is Margaret Carter — ”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“They told me at your high school that you’re Lee Tsien Chen’s friend.”
She w£^ed past me into the kitchen. She looked at the extra place Fd set
at the table. At the eggs and the pancakes waiting there. “He’s in the
United States without supervision, in violation of his student visa. It hap-
pens a lot in Southern California; we call children like him Tarachute
Kids.’ Where is he, Samuel?”

“Beats me,” I said. “My pop just finis hed eating.” I indicated the dishes
in the sink. ‘Tie works nights, so he has to get his sleep.” I hoped I wasn’t
going to have to prove a point by eating Lee’s food, on top of my own
breakfast.

Her sharp gaze darted around the room and she poked her head into
the den. I was sure there wasn’t anything downstairs to rouse suspicion;
Fd alwa 3 rs kept it clean and innocuous. Gramps had taught me that, just
as he’d been taught in his own youth.

There was a cough fi"om upstairs. The watchful look left her eyes, and I
silently thanked Lee for his quick thinking. He’d hardly make noise if he
were hiding.

“Well,” she said. “If you see Lee, tell him his mother needs him in Chi-
na. He should be there for his father’s funeral.”

Fimeral. So that was what had tipped the USCIS off Damn, no wonder
he’d been crying.

70

Edd Vick

Asimov's

Lee coughed twice more as she was leaving. By the hunt door this time.

I took the stairs two at a time. Rovmding the comer to the back bed-
room, I started talking before I got there. “Damn, Lee! Good idea, but
don’t overdo it, huh?” TTien I got to the door and stopped.

Lee was on the floor next to the bed. At first, I wasn’t sure if he was
breathing, then saw him take a shallow breath and break into racking
coughs. When they subsided, he stayed on the floor.

I got him to the bathroom, where he retched weakly into the toilet.

He slumped down against the wall.

I poured him some water and squatted down across from him. “You
need to go to the doctor.”

He shook his head, probably afraid talking would start his cough again.

“If I call nine-one-one from here, that USCIS agent might find out you
were here and deport you. If I drop you off at Hoag Hospital anonymous-
ly, you’ll be okay.”

He shook his head again, then coughed. Coughed. Hugging both arms
around his chest, he knocked his head back against the wall several
times, muttering “damn” between the last few coughs.

Finally, he stopped coughing and hung his head between his knees.
Spreading from the bridge of his nose outward a faint red Rorschach
grew, like a light simbum. It had the shape of a butterfly.

I got up. It was time to call for an ambulance.

Just then, there was a poimding on the door. Not the front door. The
bathroom door, right next to me.

I couldn’t help it, I was so startled. I twisted.

I wouldn’t be surprised to come out of a twist one of these days with my
head on backward.

This time, it wasn’t so bad. I took a quick assessment of myself. There
was a pain in my left side, like I’d stretched too far the other way, and my
back hurt over my right shoulder blade. I pulled at my shirt and foimd a
large hole with rough edges. There wasn’t much blood. Like I said, not so
bad.

I was on the groimd in a small stand of trees, mostly mesquite, walnut,
and loblolly pine, so I pegged it for the Southwest. The grass was well-
tended. It looked like a park, so I hadn’t gone too far back. The sun was
low; it was early morning or late evening. I knew there was a fire nearby,
or soon would be. There always is, after a blind twist.

Fd barely made my way through the trees, to find a sidewalk bordering
a street, when there was a tremendous explosion from beyond the low
buildings across the way. Two of the buildings were simply thrown away
in the shockwave like matchstick houses. I saw a plume of thick black
smoke shoot skyward. Luckily, I was protected by a sturdier structure, a
bank. In glancing back down, I read the bank’s name, and knew with a
chill where I was. When naturally followed.

Texas City, Texas. April 16, 1947.

I had to see the heart of the conflagration. I closed my eyes, took a half-
breath, and let the fire puD at me. I twisted.

Parachute Kid

71

February 2005

I landed on my feet right up against the railing that ran along the edge
of the wharves. Nobody paid attention to me — all eyes were on the ship.
In the harbor, the Grand Camp had been binning for more than an hour,
sending up flames that captivated everyone. They were the most intense
orange anyone had ever seen, the orange of ammonium nitrate boimd for
wartom Europe.

The crowd of men and women — and many children — around me was
still alive. They wouldn’t be much longer. They were watching the fire-
fighters arcing their paltry columns of water at the blaze. I peered
around, looking through the crowd, watching for —

There! A flicker in the air, and I was seeing a shape come into being and
drop to the dock. A five-year-old boy with blood starting to well to the sm*-
face on his upper arm. He was naJced and grinning. People aroimd him
backed away.

I had less than twenty seconds. That first blast, the one I had seen fi*om
the other side of the bank, w£is coming. I had twisted back in time almost
a minute. I ran, pushing people aside, and grabbed the boy, and he was
squirming against me, trying to turn his head to look out to sea at what
we both knew was coming, what we could both feel building, what drew
us to itself, and I screamed as the explosion blossomed, and hugged him
to me, and

twisted

— London. Horses squealing, their carriages and the houses aU around
blazing. Twist.

— ^A forest. They all look alike to me when they’re on fire. Twist.

— ^New York. An early September morning. One tower was aflame and
we could both hear the other jet. Twist.

— ^Texas City again. The day after my first twist, just after midnig ht,
and the Grand Camp’s sister ship The High Flyer was about to explode,
taking with her the Wilson B. Keene and the Monsanto plant. Twist.

— ^Another forest, this one not yet ablaze. I could feel it coming, though.
It was in the air, so charged that I felt all my hair lifting away from my
skin. The boy squirmed in my grasp, not trying to twist away but looking
all aroimd him for the spark, the fire, the explosion.

The trees were all around us. No clearings, nowhere to get away fi-om
the inferno I knew was coming except to twist. But I was so tired, so
scraped up fixim traveling through time.

And then it came, lightning stabbing the towering tree behind me, and
so close that I could feel the energy blasting through its root system and
into the soles of my shoes, throwing me up and away into another tree.
Dazed, I lay there for a long moment under the spruce, hearing nothing
except the roaring in my head.

I sat up, rubbing my forehead and looking at the fire as it crackled
through the fir’s branches to neighboring trees. That’s when I caught the
familiar shimmer in the air as another Sam Nelson dropped into existence.
He looked about fifty, much older than the Sam that Lee and I had seen
outside my house. I^essed in a supple Nomex approach suit, boots, and
hardhat, he trained the video camera he carried on the trunk of the burn-
ing tree, tracking up, across, and down to spot me in his viewfinder. He

72

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peered around the side of the camera, as if imsure if I was really there.
Lowering it, he walked to where I stood and led me farther from ^e fire.

“Sam? What’s going on?” he asked. “Aren’t you a bit young to be fighting
fires?”

I was glad my ears had cleared enough to hear him. “Wild twist. It was
an accident.”

“Aren’t they all?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the fire.

“Where am I? And when?”

“You can’t tell? Come on, what kind of trees do you see?”

“Fir.” I nodded toward the brnning tree. “Spruce.”

“Grand fir,” he corrected. “Sitka spruce. And over there is a yellow
cedar. And there’s a black hawthorn behind you. It’s August 10, 1034.”

“British Columbia, then,” I said, looking down toward my tennis shoes.
When the hell had I gotten so superior and condescending? “When are
the rest of the Sams coming?”

“Coming?”

“To fight the fire.” I imagined them, Sams of all ages arriving with axes
and heavy-duty extinguishers. I was smprised they weren’t here already;
we tried to catch fires as early as possible.

“We’re not fighting this one. It’s necessary for the environment. Cleans
out the understory.” He turned back to the spreading fire. “Fm just study-
ing it.” He started to raise the camera again, then paused. “Is that yours?”

“What?” And then I saw the small nude figure staring raptly up at the
fiery rain of needles and cones all aroimd. I ran to the kid and pulled him
away. Older Sam was ignoring both of us, so I closed my eyes, concentrat-
ing on a certain place and time, and

twisted

— ^Newport Beach. A two-bedroom house. Mine, but unfurnished and
new, suffused with the smell of fresh paint. I could feel the boy trjdng to
direct the twist, to send us once more into flame. I grabbed a doorframe
and yelled “Stop!” Something worked; maybe he was just too tired. We
were both covered in abrasions, and I felt fresh blood on my cheek. I’d
been wrenched in every direction. So had he. The boy held up his right
hand and screamed; the index finger was gone, down to the second
knuckle.

“I’ll take care of that,” said a voice, and the old man stepped through
from the kitchen.

“Gramps.”

His face and neck were covered in masses of scar tissue, his left sleeve
was pinned up, he walked with a cane. He limped over to the boy. “Sam.
Hello there.”

I’d heard that voice, sa3ring that name to me, so many times. Tears
pricked at my eyes. Gramps had taught me English, had shown me how
to read — ^hell, he’d named me. First the fires, then the old man. My earli-
est memories.

I had to get away for a minute. I walked upstairs to the fi:nnt bedroom
and grabb^ the firat shirt I saw. Most of them were still in plastic. When
I got back to the kitchen with it, Gramps had the kid seated at the table
and was clumsily bandaging him. I draped the shirt around the kid’s

Parachute Kid

73

February 2005

shoulders while staring at his damaged hand. Then I looked at my own —
complete — hand.

Gramps — the oldest Sam — ^had a different pair of fingers missing on
his remaining hand. Time is just the most amazing thing.

He finished with the kid and pulled down a loaf of bread. Sam tore into
it like he hadn’t eaten in dajrs. I took a slice, too.

Gramps picked up the ointment again and looked at me. “Yom* cheek is
bleeding.”

I put a finger to my cheek, looked at it. “Not much,” I said, holding up
my hand to ward him off He started for me anyway, and I backed up a
couple of steps. That stopped him.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” he said.

“Yeah. Three years ago, my time.”

He looked me up and down. “Looks like Fve got about a decade, then.”

“If— ” I said.

“Yes, I wish it were that easy. No, strike that, I don’t.”

Neither did I. Then what we did, all we Sams, would be useless.

Gramps smiled. “At least you’re not staring at my feet anymore. Nice to
see your face.”

I looked at him and he at me, and the kid chewed and looked at both of
us. I broke the staring contest first. “Well, gotta go.”

“I’ve got him,” said Gramps, laying his hand on the kid’s — on Sam’s —
shoulder.

“Goodbye, Sam,” I said to both of them. I twisted on out of there.

I turned on the television and got the date and time from the cable direc-
tory channel. It was early afternoon, two days after Fd left Lee upstairs.

I checked, just to make sime. He wasn’t up there.

I pulled off my bloody, tom, and abraded clothes and threw them away.
Then I took a shower and treated the worst scrapes. I looked — and felt-
like Fd been dragged behind a car. Getting dressed again, I noticed Lee’s
keys on the dresser.

The drive to the hospital was a memorable one, considering that
Gramps had only given me a couple of lessons before he’d died.

Lee was out of intensive care, the nurse at the desk told me. She was
polite, but adamant that the details of his illness not be discussed with
anybody but family. But yes, I could see him.

He was sitting up in the darkened room, alone with the beep of the
heart monitor. “Hey, Sam.” His expression was blank, like he wanted to
see which way Fd jump before committing himself

“Hi, Lee. Fm sorry to hear about your dad.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not like he was ever aroimd.” He was fooling with the
cord that ran fi'om his finger to the monitor.

“So bow’d you get to the hospital?”

“That guy, the one who was locking on the door? He was the same one
we saw earlier. His raincoat was still dripping. Water and blood both.
Weird.” The monitor started beeping a little faster. “He looked just like
you, only older.”

“He was me.”

74

Edd Vick

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I told him. About me and being found by me when I was five. Or appar-
ently five — older mes have been looking in the past, especially around
fires, but haven’t found a me younger than the Sam Fd rescued. I told him
about being raised by Gramps. And then I told him about my mission in
life, and he broke up.

“Oh, that is excellent,” he said. “You, a fireman! All by yourself r

“Yeah,” I sedd. “Except when I put a fire out, it stays out. You heard
about the Kyoto Inferno? Five years ago?”

He shook his head.

“The Los Angeles firebomber? In 1980? Apollo 11?”

He was still shaking his head. “Didn’t that one go to the moon?”

“iVbu; it did. I have as much choice about what I do in the past as you do
about what you’re going to do tomorrow.”

“Color me freaked,” he said, but the heart monitor had slowed back
down. He looked toward the door, and I turned my head to see that there
were shadows on its pebbled glass. The handle turned, and a nurse
walked in, followed by a Chinese woman.

said Lee. He and the woman, his mother, talked together in

Chinese.

The nurse turned to me. “Excuse me, dear. I think you’d better go.”

Lee held up his hand. “Could he stay? Please?”

“Well — ” said the nurse, but Lee and his mother had already gone back
to their conversation. Tears were streaming down both their faces.

The nurse dithered, then left, and, afl^er a while, Lee introduced his
mother to me. We held an awkward conversation, translated through Lee,
which broke off when a woman doctor came through the door, accompa-
nied by a yoimg Chinese man.

“Fm Doctor Meade,” she said. “And this is Lawrence Fong, a graduate
student fi*om the University of California. He’ll be translating for me.”

“I can do that,” said Lee.

“Some of the medical terms are pretty complicated. I want to make sure
your mother imderstands your condition completely.”

Lee had something called S 3 rstemic Lupus Erythematosus. “Or SLE,”
said the doctor. “It’s more common in women than in men, but it’s also
more prevalent in people from China. There are eleven warning signs,
and Lee has four of them, including fatigue, the facial rash, and loss of
hair. That’s more than enough to make a fair diagnosis.” She talked about
an immun osuppressive regimen, and said the chances of his surviving
were very good. “Eighty percent of people with lupus live past ten more
years,” she said, like that was a good thing.

Lee’s mother shook her head. “He must come back with me for treat-
ment in China,” Fong translated. “She doesn’t trust western medicine.”

“He would be better off here,” said the doctor. “He’s likely to die of an in-
terciurent infection.”

Lee’s mother was adamant. Finally, in obvious fimstration, the doctor
agreed to sign Lee out. They all left;.

“If the doctor were a man,” said Lee, “he might have talked her into it.”

I didn’t know how much time I had. “The doctor said that if you go back
to China, you’ll die.”

Parachute Kid

75

February 2005

Without a pause, he said, “Then Fm not going ”

“Shell make you.”

“Not if Fm not here.” He pulled the sheet away and yanked the lead oflF
his finger. Immediately, an alarm went off on the monitoring unit. “Crap,”
he said, trying to get to his feet. He coughed. Coughed again.

Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh specializes in lupus. I fig-
ured, as long as I was twisting, that we might as well do a little research
and get him into the best institution. So first we went to the library, a few
years up the line, to see who’d had recent breakthroughs in the disorder,
and then I took him to Pennsylvania.

I got him there a couple of months before we left the hospital in Cali-
fornia. You wouldn’t even know about the bar fire there unless you were
local, but it helped puU us to the area. I made sure to get him a male doc-
tor. Then I jumped to six months later and met his mother again for her
first time.

When he was well, he asked me to take him back to before his father’s
accident. He thinks he can stop it,

I said Fd consider it. Maybe FU take him. If it works. I’ll get introduced
to his mom for the first time again — as well as his dad.

Twisting back home, I went through the ritual of imdressing, shower-
ing, bandaging, and dressing. I was on my way to check the date and time
when there was a knock at the door. I ignored it, finding out I had arrived
a week after Lee had gone into the local hospital.

The doorbell rang.

Tired and sore and twisted all to hell, I couldn’t think of any reason not
to answer the door. Twisting away fi*om the USCIS and the end of high
school would be a pleasure.

“Hello, Samuel,” she said.

“Agent Carter,” I said.

“This is Maralee Consualves of Child Protective Services. I called her
as a concerned citizen. May we come in?”

How far could I string them along? “I don’t know,” I said. “My father is
asleep upstairs. Please come back later.” I bet myself that Carter had very
sensible black piunps, and that the hightops Consualves wore were a riot
of color. But I didn’t look. Fd stopped looking down,

“I fear we really must have this conversation now,” Consualves said.
“We have been tr^g to contact you for several days.”

So I let them in. They preceded me into the den, looking arovmd at the
photos of various Sams at various ages on the mantel, then at the inex-
pensive furniture, the television, and, through the door, into the kitchen. I
saw Carter point out the stairs to the other woman.

They sat on the couch. I took Gramps’s rechner.

“Now, Samuel,” said Carter. “Yoiir school has had no contact with your
parents or a guardian in several years. Your grades have been good, so
they haven’t felt any need to caU someone in. But now, you’ve been skip-
ping school for a week.” She grinned, obviously convinced she’d caught
me, another parachute kid, just like Lee.

76

Edd Vick

Asimov's

Consualves took over. “You seem quite mature. But it is my job to en-
sure that no minor is in danger or without the help he or she nei^. I wrill
ask you right out: do you have someone to watch over you?”

I opened my mouth.

“Of course he does.”

I turned to the stairs, as surprised as the two women. An older me
stood on the bottom step, removing his wet raincoat. He dropped it, and
advanced on Carter and Consualves. “I am his father: Samuel Nelson, Se-
nior. His mother is sadly gone. Has Sam done something to precipitate
this meeting?”

“I fear he has been missing school lately,” said Consualves. “It worries
us when there is no reason given.”

He shot me a reproving glance, so I tried to look contrite. “We will dis-
cuss it, he and I. But — ^isn’t that something for me to take up with the
school? Not you?”

“Actually — ^it is.” Consualves got to her feet, followed several seconds
later by Carter. “There has been no official complaint. We won’t keep you
any longer. Come along, Margaret.” The tone of that last line said plain as
day that Carter had run out of favors at Child Protective Services.

Margaret went along. She paused next to me, looked in suspicious baf-
flement at the wet raincoat on the floor, and went on to the door. Once
there, she turned. “One last thing, Samuel. Have you seen Lee Tsien
Chen?”

“Not recently, no.”

“The police are looking for him,” she said. “And so is the USCIS, for de-
portation. You seem to have been the last person to see him. Fll make
siu:« they’ve got your address.” She left.

I was right about their shoes.

Dinner was quiet, just the five of us. All Sams, of course; even Gramps
and the kid — ^ma3rbe three years older, maybe four — twisted here. 'They
want me to go back to school. “Back” as in back a week, to make up the
lost time. After graduation, they’d like me to apply to the Massachusetts
Firefighting Academy. I said that my application had to be in nine
months ago for consideration.

We all laughed. That was the easy part. O

SOMEWHERE IN THE MOEBIUS’ HOUSE

Somewhere in the Moebius’ house,
a most theoretical louse
bit a linear cat,
while a dog-very flat-
chased a monodimensional mouse!

-W. Gregory Stewart

Parachute Kid

77

POLYHEDRONS

Robert A. Metzger

Robert Metzger's hard-SF novel Picoverse was a 2003
Nebula finalist and Ace has just released his latest
novel, CUSP. Mr. Metzger's short fiction has appeared
in Science Fiction Age, F&SF, Amazing, IVeiiid Taies,
and Aboriginai SF, and his non-fiction science pieces
in Anaiog, Wired, and in his long running science
column in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Wk'iters of
America Buiietin. When not writing. Dr. Metzger dusts
off his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and attempts to
beat obnoxious atoms into submission while growing
semiconductor thin films by a process called Molec-
ular Beam Epitaxy. You can learn more about his var-
ious activities at www.rametzger.com. The following
taie is his first story for Asimoi^s.

TTuming my back to the Edge and squatting down, I placed a fingertip
to the hot asphalt; a slightly sticky sheen of liquid tar glistened, its sour
scent blossoming around me. Three forms of input — ^touch, sight, and
smell. The asphalt made no soimd, and while I could bend down and take
a lick, there was not much point. Fd already identified the substance, and
a few more feeble forms of detection would not allow me to alter that real-
ity. The asphalt was beyond my abihty to control. The place of infinite pos-
sibilities lay on the other side of the Edge; now forever beyond my reach.
Fd been exiled, purged, drained of almost aU abihties and memories.
Knocking aside a few rocks and pebbles, I picked up a wa3nvard polyhe-
dron. Black and twenty-two-sided, it was blissfully unaware of having
tunneled through the Edge; its nearly infinite numl^r of quantum states
collapsed, this snip of geometry was now only defined by a four-dimen-
sional location vector, facet dimensions, and a few color and texture des-
ignators. Closing my hand, I felt the polyhedron’s hard edges bite into my
skin, but still, I could not bend it to my will.

Useless.

Opening my fist, I tossed the polyhedron over my shoulder and in the
direction of the Edge, just as a distant and desiccated memory resiufaced.
Mills Avenue should be cutting north-south, instead of the mist of poly-
hedrons spilling into the sky. I took a few steps, my right ankle momen-

78

Asimov's

tarily throbbing; a phantom twinge that vanished the instant I consid-
ered it. At that moment, I knew there was nothing wrong with my ankle,
despite the fading memory of its being carbonized by a high voltage arc.

liien the memory vanished, swallowing its own t^l.

I looked down.

A few other polyhedrons had tumbled in from the Edge of the world,
much smaller than the one I had tossed. These resembled small grains of
black sugar and sparkling chips of obsidian. Not worth considering. I shift-
ed my attention to the cufis of my jeans, my gray knit socks, and a pair of
sweat-streaked sneakers. Not PF Flyers, the shoes that would have allowed
me to run faster, jump higher, and sculpt the froth of space-time, but just
an old pair of Keds with frayed laces. Also not worth considering. ^ I start-
ed to walk. I knew my destination — the pinkish stucco, three-bedroom, two-
bath ranch, with the shake roof in need of repair, and the sheared sprinkler
head by the curb that spewed like a little hquid volcano. Not far away in
the overall scheme of things, probably no more than a dozen houses down
the street, but still halfway to the far Edge of this world.

Fd walked down this street before.

Many times.

I shook my head, sensing a few snips of entangled thoughts tunneling
through the Edge, quantmn fields sampling the reality beyond. And, for
just a moment, I remembered. This street was not the world, but an an-
nex between worlds. Then the thought was gone, just another quantmn
phantom extinguished in the harsh fight of examination.

I focused on the street — on Am*ora Drive, looking down the stretch of
asphalt that should have ended at a barbed wire fence intended to keep
kids out of the expanse of brown weeds and prickly pear cactus beyond it.
But, like Mills Avenue, a polyhedron mist defined the not-so-distant
bovmdary.

I lowered my head, letting the summer sim beat at my neck, watched
my Keds kick^g at pebbles, and walked past the doorless and window-
less houses, moving toward the cloud-white 1960 Dodge Dart sitting in
the driveway of the pink stucco, three-bedroom, two-bathroom, ranch
style house — ^the only ceir anywhere on Aurora Drive. The Dart’s chrome
sparkled in the summer srm, its rear fins an impressive bit of geometry
adorned with red and white bubbles of plastic, perfect in form, if not quite
in function. Only the swatch of electrical tape running across the top of
the right fin, holding a band of chrome against the red tailfight, marred
the original design. A retaining screw was missing.

I stopped and touched the Dart, running a finger along the rear fin,
dragging it across the white enamel, and then onto the gooey strand of
sun-faded gray electrical tape. Why hadn’t the owners fixed it, I wondered
once again?

It was not so much a question of how to keep a tailfight in place.

It was a question of returning the Dart to a state of pristine perfection.

Static perfection, a time invariant example of what should be. When
faced with infinite possibilities, quantum states beyond the ability to
count, static perfection was the only possible alternative, the only way to
maintain sanity.

Polyhedrons

79

February 2005

Shaking my head, unable to imderstand how something so obviously in
need of h^ng had not been fixed, I walked onto the expanse of pea gravel
that ran along the side of the house, and then through an open gate lead-
ing into the backyard.

Soothing order.

Defined by a redwood stained fence, the backyard consisted of a one-
fifth acre geometrical quilt with patches of brown grass, more pea gravel,
a slab of concrete beneath a gray-stained almninum sheet patio, and the
dominating rock garden — a mound of stones, worn and rounded, better
than waist high. Everything in its place and a place for everything — sta-
tic perfection.

I fimwned.

There was one exception.

I walked to the far comer of the yard, a microscopic wilderness created
by several pine trees nearly thirty or forty feet high, the canopy reaching
into the spider web of phone and power lines criss crossing over the yard.
Oleander bushes, sprouting flame-red buds, clustered in chaotic clumps
fi:t)m the base of the pines, defined the boundary of a small clearing.

Chaotic.

But at least shaded.

And in the shade, beneath the canopy of pines, Bobby stood in the hole.
Knee-deep, with trowel in hand, a rusted me^ thing with a paint-splattered
wooden handle, he bent down, poking at someth^g I could not see, and
flicked out a bit of dark dirt, a brown arc flying above his head, little of it
actually falling outside of the hole.

There looked to be little progress from yesterday, perhaps none at all.

The groimd here was incredibly hard and rocky, and the little trowel he
used was totally inadequate for the task he’d set for himself I walked into
the shade of the trees and took my seat in the rickety wooden chair wait-
ing there, its slats once stained red like the smrounding fence, but now
faded dirt-brown by years of summer sun, its wooden surface splintered
and dimpled with rusted nail heads. I picked up the bottle of Orange
Crush that alwa3rs waited for me, popped the cap using the old pliers rest-
ing on the arm of the chair, and let tiie cap fly.

1 drank, long and deep.

Cold. It was always cold — a bit of certainty in a constantly shifting re-
ality. But my mind seemed to begrudge me that comforting snip of im-
mutabilily, and I found myself wondering if the Orange Crush should be
something more than just cold, sensing something missing, something
forgotten — a mental itch that couldn’t be scratched. As I considered that,
I watched a thick clot of gnats swarm above Bobb/s head, suspecting
they pestered him in a similar, not quite conscious manner, his fi:^ hand
occasionally swatting at them, the clot momentarily scattering, but then
reforming the instant his hand passed throu^ them. They were attract-
ed to the Butch- Wax that kept his bangs standing at attention, the pink
paste glistening in his short brown hair.

I rested the pop bottle on the arm of my chair, placing it with care next
to the pliers. “Find an3dhing?”

Bobby straightened up, tinning, running the back of his hand across

80 Robert A. Metzger

Asimov's

his sweaty face, leaving behind a dirt streak from right cheek to fore-
head. Dropping his trowel and reaching over to an adjacent pde of dirt
and rocks, he fished out a shard of granite, dark, but flecked white. “A
fossil,” he said as he held the rock out in my direction. “Probably from a
T-Rex.”

I shook my head. “A piece of granite.”

Bobby frowned, his round face puckering, his eyes half-closing, the
fi*eckles across the bridge of his nose and cheeks momentarily sizzling in
pattern, flashing crystalline lattices, folded proteins, Feynman diagrams,
even tachyon decay tracks, the patterns generated by a nearly infinite
number of pulsing gold line segments, the ends of each anchored by a
freckle — ^the images too fluid. “Still might be a fossil,” he said, his filicides
again only freckles.

I shook my head once more. “A piece of granite.”

He squint^ at me, and then tossed the rock back into the pile. “Doesn’t
matter,” he said, and, squatting down, poked at the bottom of his hole
with the trowel. “Could be anything down here. Might even be another
world beyond the bottom of that hole.”

It was now my turn to squint, and for my face to pucker. Anything was
synonymous with an intrinsic lack of control. “Just dirt and rocks,” I said.
Then I thought for a moment, searching far, attempting to reach out for
the boy and his strange way of t hinking , to meet him at a point some-
where along the distant line separating us. “Perhaps a cat might have
used your hole for a fitter box. That would offer up something other than
dirt and rocks.”

Bobby straightened up, and pointed the trowel’s rusted tip at me. “Very
good,” he said. “Never thought about cat poop. Might even be ancient cat
poop, possibly even fossilized cat poop, left here by a cat that had the poop
scared right out of it as it was chased by a T-Rex.”

This time I didn’t even bother to shake my head. “Of course, cats and T-Rex
did not exist at the same geological moment.”

‘^Geological moment f he said, imitating me in a flat, emotionless voice.
“You can’t know for certain. The cat might have been caught in the nega-
tive energy density that formed between two counter-rotating micro-
black holes just moments before they leaked away the last of their mass
in a Hawking burst. You’d get quite the temporal compression dining a
bvu^t like that, easily capable of hurling a cat millions of years into the
past.” He stared at me, while reaching down and pulling his belt up over
his very ample waist. “Could have happened.”

“Such a phenomenon could only take place in the vacumn of space, in
an environment hardly conducive to the well-being of a cat. And, of
com^e, if you consider the local gravitational shear in the vicinity of the
holes, not to mention the hard gamma backflow erupting from the too-
near event horizons, a cat simply couldn’t survive in order to take advan-
tage of the temporal burst.”

Bobby smiled. “Rad-hardened, graviometric-compensated, cat space-
suit,” he said, and then bent back down and began poking at rocks. “The
cat poop was good, real out-of-the-box t hinkin g for someone who has lived
an eternity in a box.”

Polyhedrons

81

February 2005

I said nothing, realizing that this was a pointless discussion; that when
it came to what was possible and what was impossible, Bobby was inca-
pable of seeing the difference, undoubtedly an artifact of being trapped in
a world he could not control.

“But I don’t really care about fossilized, time-traveling cat poop,” said
Bobby, tossing aside his trowel, and then bending down into the hole and
grunting, sweat pooling in the creases dimpling along the back of his
neck. “Umph,” he said, lurching forward, almost falling on his face, but
catching himself at the last moment, then reaching down to his feet again
and hoisting up a dirt-encrusted rock shaped like a too-large sweet pota-
to. He tossed it into the pile. “I’m just digging a hole.”

“Why?” I asked, knowing I had asked coxmtless times before, but not
quite able to remember the answer.

Bobby sat down on the lip of the hole, his feet just brushing the bottom.
I looked down into the hole for a moment, not at the dirt and rocks, but at
his shoes, an old pair of Keds, and then at his gray socks and at the cuffs
of his jeans. “I’m going to dig right down to the bottom of the world,
through the bottom of the world, and get off of Aurora Drive,” he said.

I smiled as I remembered.

Always the same answer.

Aurora Drive was his world. There was nothing beyond it for him, past
the infinite walls of polyhedrons, and certainly nothing below it. I picked
up my Orange Crush and finished it off When I lowered the bottle, Bobby
was gone — ^the hole empty, nothing but rocks and dirt and the footprints
left from a pair of Keds. Leaking into the hole, I wondered just what Bob-
by believed lay on the other side. I stood and left, knowing that I’d see
him tomorrow.

I always saw him tomorrow.

Even hotter than yesterday. I stood before the Dart.

The car listed to the left, its rear end lowered. I squinted, seeing what
had happened, but not wanting to believe it. Instead, I tried to focus my
attention on the strip of electrical tape, on that famihar, and so easily cor-
rectible defect.

But I couldn’t.

The car sat at an impossible angle, its tailpipe pinched between the
rear bumper and driveway, actually cracked, permanently damaged. I
slowly walked around the back of the car, bending down, running my
hands across its trunk.

The left rear wheel was gone, not just the tire, but the entire wheel,
nothing there but a ragged stub of the axle, leaking dark fluid and dig-
ging into the asphalt driveway. If Bobb/s parents could not replace the
screw on a tailhght, I knew they could never make this repair.

Beyond repair.

I walked past the car, moving fast, my Keds kicking at the pea gravel.
“Bobby!” I shouted. As I cleared the gate, I saw him standing nearly waist
deep in his hole, the pile of rocks and dirt beyond the hole’s rim, alm ost
as high as his head. “Did you see what happened to the Dart? It’s beyond
repeiir!”

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Robert A. Metzger

Asimov's

Bobby straightened up, and leaning forward, rested against the lip of
the hole. “So?”

“It’s broken, damaged, obviously in need of major repair. It is not opera-
tional.”

Bobby motioned with his trowel, pointing at me and then at the chair.
“Have a seat, relax, and carefully consider just what it is that really
needs to be repaired.”

I took a deep breath, and, bending down, grabbed onto the arms of the
chair, steadying m 3 rselfi slowly sitting, and willing m 3 ^ 1 f to focus, to pri-
oritize, and to question my assumptions and objectives. “The car is bro-
ken. Items that are broken need to be repaired. Therefore, the car needs
to be repaired. It needs to be returned to a state that is invariant with re-
spect to the local temporal flow. Pristine and static.”

“You need a Crush,” said Bobby, pointing at the bottle next to the chair.

He folded his pudgy, dirt-caked arms across his chest, obviously wait-
ing, so patient. There was no way around it. I reached down, grabbed the
bottle, popping the cap with the pliers, and took a fast drink, the spot be-
tween my eyes suddenly poimding. I lowered the bottle into my lap. It
was at that moment that I understand why Orange Crush was c^ed Or-
ange Crush.

Something remembered?

“If the car were repaired, what would you do with it?” he asked.

I had difficulty focusing on his question, still overloaded by the taste of
orange in my mouth.

“There is nowhere it can take you, no way that the car can be used to
escape Aurora Drive. The car serves no purpose here. It is a distraction,
masquerading as a problem. When you have only a finite amount of time,
you must focus on the real problems, learn to prioritize.” He pointed his
trowel toward the west, through a small break in the trees, where the
polyhedron mist was visible. “We don’t have the resources on this side of
the Edge to create the static perfection that you crave.”

I blinked, and then took another sip, this time slow and easy, savoring
the orangeness. “But the Dart is damaged.”

“Certainly is,” said Bobby, “and I suspect that tomorrow, it will be even
more so.”

I grimaced.

"^e real problem, what you will help me with, has nothing to do with
that old Dart, but it is in getting to the bottom of this hole, since that is
the only way we can get off of Aurora Drive.”

I looked past him, and into the hole. Still nothing but dirt and rocks.
“It’s just a hole.”

He shook his head. “It is the solution to your problem.”

The only problem I had was the 1960 Dodge Dart, and its missing
wheel and right rear taillight retaining screw. But I found I couldn’t quite
tell him that. “I don’t have a trowel,” I said, instead making an excuse,
looking past him and into the hole.

Bobby smiled. “You have something better than a trowel.”

I couldn’t imagine what that might be.

“In your left pants pocket,” he said, pointing the trowel at my pants.

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83

February 2005

That made absolutely no sense. My jeans had no pockets, since there
was nothing I had that required a pocket. I looked down. My jeans now
had pockets. Reaching in, I felt something hard and cold, fiigid, my fin-
gertips tingling and at the same time burning. I slowly pulled the object
out of my pocket, tendrils of vapor first snaking out, followed by what ap-
peared to be sputtering and hissing blobs of hquefied air, quickly boiling
away to nothing. With a final tug, the object was out of my pocket, stuck
to my fingertips, a small sphere of crackling something, so cold that the
air around it liquefied, dribbling down, splashing to the groimd where it
crackled and danced. The orb was beyond fiigid, the joints in my fingers
stiffening, and the skin on my fingertips cracking.

“A 256-qubit Bose-Einstein quantum computer, self-contained in a sol-
id hydrogen shell, containing a laser-suspended lithium ion condensate
matrix chilled to 3 degrees microkelvin,” said Bobby, pointing at the
sphere. “The ultimate quantum computer, with enough aggregate degrees
of freedom to describe every possible initial condition of the problem at
hand, and then process that information simulteneously through its en-
tangled states beyond the Edge, and back to the primary processor where
you’ve stored your soul.”

I nodded, and released the frozen sphere, the tips of my fingers crack-
ing of^ falling into Bobby’s hole. There was no pain, my hand fiiuzen solid
up to the wrist. The sphere hung in fi*ont of me, spitting liquefied air and
chilling my nose.

“Just imagine if you had one of those locked in the old noggin!” said Bob-
by, as he tapped the side of his head with his trowel, and then climbed up
the side of the hole, kicking back in a fair amoimt of dirt and rocks in the
process. “There are an i nfini te number of paths to get finm here to there,”
he said, pointing at hims elf, and then at the bottom of the hole. “But only
one path will show just which rock to remove first, what trowel full of dirt
to remove next, and then which rock should go after that in order to get
through the bottom. If you don’t do it in just the right order, the hole will
always fafi in on itself, the rocks tumbling back, the dirt filling in.”

“Not easy,” I said.

Bobby nodded. “It would take you more than forever tiying it this way
or that, slogging along for eternity in an old digital bit-by-bit fashion. But
you don’t have an infinite amoimt of time.” Reaching up, he wiped beads
of sweat fi*om his forehead. “Gets hotter every day, not many more days
left before the entangled states lose coherence and you dribble away.” He
pointed his trowel in the direction of the polyhedron mist, just visible
through the break in the trees. “What you need to do is implement all the
solutions simultaneously, and then pick out the one that actually works. A
perfect job for your quantum computer, where those old yes and no digital
bits are replaced by quantum bite of infinite possibilities. One run of the
problem, and all the solutions pop out simultaneously. That would get us
down to the bottom of the hole in a hmry.”

I nodded my head and looked into the hole. So many rocks, and so much
dirt, nothing clear, nothing definite, each step a probability, a possibility,
the uncertainty amplified with each movement taken. But the frozen
sphere could cut through all the uncertainty.

84

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Static perfection.

“The solution becomes obvious, and you’ve arrived at that static state
you are so comfortable with,” said Bobby as he pointed at the frozen
sphere. “It can solve any problem, but not all problems — there’s not
enough time. The trick is not in the solving, but in the asking — which
problem should be solved?”

I squinted, not imderstanding.

He stepped over to me, staring straight into my eyes. He weis exactly
my height. It was only at that moment that I realized I was a child, as tall
as Bobby, and probably just as old. We wore the same Keds, the same gray
socks, and the same cuffed jeans.

“The real problem is in choosing the right problem,” said Bobby, and,
reaching out, grabbed me by my broken, frozen hand, pulled me forward,
and then pushed me toward the hole. I fell, a wall of dirt and rock streak-
ing past me for a time that seemed impossibly long, either the hole or my
perception of it distorting. “It’s why Fm here,” he said. “To teach you how
to identify that problem.”

I hit hard, flat on my back, rocks cracking ribs, shattering my spine,
caving in the back of my skull. Bobby was far above me, barely visible,
peering in finm the edge of a small circle of light — ^the top of the hole.

“Choose the right problem!”

He threw down something so small that I couldn’t quite see it, some-
thing that trailed long wispy tendrils — ^the frozen sphere.

“No!”

“Start digging!” he shouted.

I tried to move, but my body was broken, my bones shattered. The
sphere came for me, straight at my head, aimed right between my eyes. It
hit, bhstering skin, vaporizing bone, burrowing deeply into my brain.

The day ended.

Bones no longer broken, missing fingers replaced — trivial concerns in
comparison to what lay nestled in my head. The air burned my throat,
searing my eyes. Each time I blinked, I could hear the inside of my lids
scraping against dried corneas. My right ankle throbbed, the narrow
wedge of sl^ visible between fallen-down sock and pant leg, all pink and
puffy, bhstered in spots, even flecked here and there with what I assumed
to be charred skin.

Simply too hot.

The only cool spot was deep within my head, several centimeters be-
hind my eyes, where the frozen shard was lodged, the 256-qubit quantum
processor — a nasty thing, distracting, so intent on solving problems — any
problems.

Only a portion of the 1960 Dodge Dart sat in the driveway, the rest
strewn across the lawn, the oil filter crushed beneath the engine block,
valve lifters neatly stacked, a shallow pool of transmission fluid seeping
into the brown grass. The carburetor here, the radiator missing its hoses
over there, a pile of glistening shards that must have been the pulverized
back window sitting by the leaking sprinkler head.

Thousands of parts strewn about.

Polyhedrons

85

February 2005

I smiled, because I could see them all, pattern and order where none
should exist. I could sense the intent, the way to put it all back together,
and the most efficient method to reassemble the rear window one small
shard of glass at a time.

Each step so clear . . .

I almost started, at that moment feeling so good, so confident, the ob-
jective so clear, my abilities more than adequate for the task at hand. And
then I fix)wned. The right rear wheel was still missing. I looked across the
lawn, desperately checking. The screw needed to hold the chrome band-
ing around the right rear taillight was also still missing.

Despite my abilities, what the entangled qubits in my head allowed me
to see, it was still not enough. The Dart could not be returned to a state of
static perfection, regardless of what I could do, what I could see.

No point in starting such a task.

So I walked up the driveway, past the gravel, and through the back
gate. Bobby stood chest-deep in his hole. Next to him was the chair, and
on the arm of the chair an imopened bottle of Orange Crush. Beyond the
chair was a second hole, again with Bobby standing chest-deep in it, and
next to it another chair and an unopened bottle of Orange Crush. And be-
yond that chair still another hole.

And another.

And another.

The backyEud had taken on a decidedly non-Euclidian geometry. An in-
finite line of holes, Bobbys, chairs, and bottles of Orange Crush ran to the
horizon, one that didn’t have the decency to fade into the haze. It simply
went on forever. And I could see all of it.

“A large number of holes,” said the first Bobby in the first hole.

I nodded.

“Yet one is significantly different from all the rest,” he said.

I walked over to the second hole, looking into it and at the Bobby stand-
ing there. It took only a moment for me to study the second hole, the 256-
qubit quantum processor embedded in my head was quite efficient. I
quickly compared the position and shape of each rock, each pebble, and
each speck of dirt in the two holes, also taking into accovmt the exact po-
sition and dimensions of the two Bobbys. There was no difference. They
were identical.

I was about to walk to the third hole, but realized that since the back-
yard was no longer in the realm of Euclidian Geometry, there was no rea-
son that I should limit myself to operating in a world of Euclidian Geom-
etry. The quantiun computer in my head allowed me to examine all the
holes.

Simultaneously.

I took one step forward.

My periphery vision slightly blurred, my right foot not quite finding
the groimd, as I took a shghtly longer step than anticipated, and sudden-
ly foimd m)rself standing next to all the holes, looking down and examin-
ing each and every Bobby.

I stepped back, reintegrating.

“Identical,” I said as I walked back to the first hole and sat in the chair.

86 Robert A. Metzger

Asimov's

“There is no hole better than the others, no hole that will lead you out of
Aurora Drive,”

“Not so,” said the first Bobby.

“There is absolutely no difference between any of these holes, and ab-
solutely no difference between each and every one of you,” I said.

“So, you include me as part of the hole,” he said, smiling. “The hole is
more than just an opening in the ground, but also includes me — a rather
bold assertion and some first class thinking outside the hole.” Still smil-
ing, he looked to his left, in the direction of the infinite line of holes and
Bobbys. “And, using that logic, one might assume that each hole includes
a chair, a bottle of Orange Crush, and a pliers.”

I looked down the infinite line.

“A hole is clearly a hole,” I said. “And you being inside the hole become
an obvious intrinsic aspect of the hole.” I paused at that point.

“Confusion is a good thing,” said Bobby, looking up at me. “You’re not
quite sure about the chair and the Orange Crush. Might they actually be
a part of the hole? Is there more to a hole than an opening in the ground
and a boy standing in it?”

I blinked once, then again. “Whether the chair and Orange Crush are
included makes no real difference — neither change the nature of the
hole.”

“Really?” asked Bobby.

I nodded and looked down the infinite line.

“Have a seat and take a drink,” said Bobby.

I sat, picked up the Orange Crush and the pliers, popped the cap and
took a sip.

“Still see no difference?” he asked.

I looked again, just to humor him. There were an infinite number of
holes, an infinite number of chairs, an infinite number of bottles of Or-
ange Crush, and an infinite number of Bobbys looking up questioningly
at me.

“All the same,” I said.

Then Bobby suddenly moved, not all of them in perfect synch, but only
the one nearest me. He jumped out of the hole far faster than any diub-
by little boy should be able to, and, reaching out, grabbed onto my hand.
“What about you!” He pulled me up out of the chair and toward the
hole.

I dropped my Orange Crush, the bottle shattering on a rock.

“Ihu are only at the first hole,” he said. “Only you sat in the first chair.”
He pointed down at the broken bottle and the little pool of orange soda
aroimd it. “And only you drank that Orange Crush and broke that bottle.”
He pulled me close.

“The first hole is different because you are a part of it!”

I shook my head, and tried to pull away, but Bobby had a tight hold on
my wrist, a hold so tight that his plmnp little fingers seemed to be melt-
ing right into my skin, his fingers flowing into me.

“You’re a part of this,” he said. “An integral, critical component.”

Again, I shook my head. Bobby still had a hold on me, but his hand was
now missing. We were welded together at the right wrist, sharing a single

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87

February 2005

hand. He pulled me forward jumping down into the hole, dragging me in
with him.

“We need to dig,” he said.

I didn’t want to dig. I knew there was no point to it — ^like the Dart that
couldn’t be returned to a state of static perfection. You could not dig yoim
way out of Aurora Drive.

“Which rock first, which one is the key?” he asked.

I don’t tell him, since I wanted no part of this hole-digging business.

But I knew the answer, could see it so clearly. There were only a finite
number of rocks along the sides and bottom of the hole, only so many
ways to remove them, so many possibilities — certainly a large number,
but a finite nmnber. ITie quantum processor in my head showed me the
possibilities, and showed me which rock should be removed first.

I had no intention of touching that rock.

But my hand moved toward it, the hand that I shared with Bobby.
'"This is the problem to be solved,” he said. “It is not about rebuilding a car
that can never be rebuilt. Choosing the correct problem is the key.”

I touched the rock.

Then I screamed and pulled back, the hand tearing away from my
wrist, a chtmk of white bone and red meat dangling fi*om the tom nub. I
screamed again, and then fainted.

The sky above seemed to be nothing except a searing ball of heat, no
clouds, no expanse of blue, nothing but an all-pervasive canopy of blind-
ing hght. I reached up to wipe the sweat from my face, but Bobby had
now taken both hands. With the stiunp of my wrist, I pushed some of the
sweat out of my eyes.

The Dart had further disintegrated, not a single discrete item recog-
nizable as a car part, each individual part having been broken down into
the most fimdamental constituents, a rusting pile of steel shavings by the
fire hydrant, a moxmd of minced plastic next to it, and a sohd sphere of
glass about the size of my head, formed from what had been all the
shards fi:nm the Dart’s shattered windows, just a few feet in finnt of me.
And it went on fi*om there to ever smaller pOes, cobalt and titanium fi'om
the paint, minced shards of asbestos from the brake pads, neatly rolled
fibers fi’om the cloth seat covers, and even a thimble full of cigar ashes
finm the ashtray.

But the right rear wheel, along the right rear chrome retaining screw,
were still missing. I sighed, reahzing that I no longer cared. Even if the
missing wheel and retaining screw were to magically appear, if I could
puU them fi*om some higher dimensional entangled vortex, I was not sure
that I would have even bothered to rebuild the car. Because Fd come to
realize that Bobby was right. There was no need for a car on Aurora Dri-
ve, not when this single street was the entire world — a smoldering, melt-
ing world that would soon be engulfed in flame, a dying place that did not
need a perfect 1960 Dodge Dart.

I walked through the back gate, trudging along. I could see the hole,
only one today, the non-Euchdian space having collapsed, and next to the
hole was the chair and the bottle of Orange Crush. I could not see Bobby,

88

Robert A. Metzger

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but a few pebbles flew out of the hole, landing atop the colossal mound of
dirt next to it.

I limped forward.

My right ankle was swollen and dripping a cloudy liquid. In one spot, a
nub of bone poked through a ruptured blister. I did my best to ignore the
pain, and focused on the hole. Bobby was down there, his butch-waxed
hair shimmering nearly three feet beneath the lip of the hole. He’d been
working hard, with my hands attached to his wrists, grabbing at this rock
and that, the hands seeming to almost know what to do, which rock
should go next. My hands were pretty savvy in the ways of hole-digging,
still tied into that 256-qubit processor in my head, despite the fact that
my hands were attached to Bobby — ^this thanks to some quantum voodoo
by way of entangled states between my missing hands and me.

I could actually feel the rocks, almost cool, the dirt coating them damp,
the texture gritty. I sat back in the chair, thanldul to be taking the weight
off of my rotting ankle, and, sliding back, looked over at the bottle of Or-
ange Crush. Reaching for the bottle, I almost knocked it over with the
nub of my left wrist. Tm thirsty!” I called out to Bobby.

“Care to make a trade?” he asked.

Suspicious, I was afraid to answer, but so thirsty. “What have you got in
mind?”

“Fll give you a right hand for a right eyeball. You’ll be able to get that
bottle of Orange Crush open, and I’ll have a direct optical input to your
quantum processor. That should really speed up the Egging. Yoxu’ hands
have been most helpful, but they can’t quite see what they’re doing.”

I thought about it for a moment, and then shrugged, realizing that it
actually soimded like a reasonable trade. With one hand I could open the
bottle of Orange Crush, and Fd still have one eye left — ^more than enough
to see the things that I needed to see. “Deal,” I said.

The world shifted, duplexing, twin perspectives and dual objectives fill-
ing my head.

I sat back. Orange Crush wedged between legs, pliers popping the cap.

Hands grabbed at rocks, prying at them, pulling them out, throwing
them over a shoulder, the pattern unfolding, the optimum sequence of
rocks, the perfect approach.

Sweet and cold.

Deeper and darker.

Hard glass against teeth. ^

Moist dirt between fingertips.

“What is that?” I asked, not quite certain who was asking, who was see-
ing, which perspective I was processing. The rock looked little different
than the others, worn and dirt-encrusted, speckled granite with bands of
gypsum. I realn^ that it was not the rock that was special, but the band
of li^t surrounding it, the light leaking through it.

“Move it.”

I pried at the rock with the trowel, working it out, a cascade of si>arkling-
bla(^ polyhedrons flying up, mixed with an eruption of light, nearly blind-
ing at first, but my si^t quickly adjusting, focusing on the light and swirl
of polyhedrons, everything else fading: the Orange Crush, melting as-

Polyhedrons

89

February 2005

phalt, the 1960 Dodge Dart, all of it randomizing, drifting, thermal fluc-
tuations sweeping the images away, until nothing remained, all gone, Au-
rora Drive not even a memory. I bent down, pressing my face to the bot-
tom of the hole, my eye peering into the light.

“What is it?

I shook my head — ^wrong question.

“Where is it?”

A room lay beneath me, shadow-filled, fiill of dark shapes with hard an-
gles, the perspective wrong, distorted, what should have been vertical
transpose to the horizontal. Then movement, a shift of shadow, gray tex-
tures transformed into a hand, reaching toward me, through the light
and past the swirl of polyhedrons, cold fingers wrapping around my
throat.

Pulling me in.

I screamed — ^the pitch perfect. The fingers aroimd my throat shattered,
resonance fi*acturing them into polyhedron debris. But the screaming did
not stop, and grew in intensity. Vision blurred, teeth cracked, vision fi"ac-
tiu^d, reality pixelating, my head rupturing in a billowing cloud of poly-
hedrons.

“The bottom of the hole was not past the Edge,” I said, turning my
head, looking over at Bobby, at a face that I now knew was mine. I now
understood that we shared more than eyes and hands — ^we shared iden-
tities, like two facets of a crystal, mirrored images. My right arm hung
over his shoulder, his left arm over my shoulder — ^the only way we could
stand, both of us missing a foot, my right and his left, nothing left but
charcoaled ankle stumps.

“Not past the Edge,” said Bobby. “That’s where the infinite possibilities
he, the boundless potential, and complete and total control.”

I nodded, no actual memories of having been beyond the Edge flitting
up from the depths, the reahty beyond the polyhedrons not compatible
with the structure of my mind. But there was some distant echo, a mental
aftertaste of the place, a tangle of complexity. That was where most of me
resided, my mind and soul, while what had leaked through to Aiunra Dri-
ve was just the faintest of entangled echoes — a faded memory from our
distant past, from a childhood in another realm. Pulling on his shoulder,
and hopping on my left foot, I turned us aroimd. “And beyond the hole we
dug?”

“Objects, inertia, firactured symmetries, a place where one exists alone,
separate, commimication beyond yourself made impossible by the physical
constraints of the all-pervasive, totally unconscious texture of the place.”

I did not understand.

But I could feel it — ^remember having felt it. “How many times have I
been through the hole?” I asked, knowing at that moment that this had
not been my first incarnation on Aiunra Drive.

Bobby grimaced. “Eight times in the recent past,” he said, and then
jumped forward, a splash of liquid asphalt splattering the top of his Keds
as he leapt fi*om the street and onto the curb, my foot then jumping. “And
once long ago, at the start, before the polyhedrons even existed.”

90

Robert A. Metzger

Asimov's

I nodded, not really certain why I did.

“We tried one time to make the transition directly from beyond the
Edge to the other side of the hole in a single step. But it was too abrupt,
the reality beyond the hole simply too alien to allow you to use the almost
nonexistent physical and ment^ resources at your disposal to identify
the problem and make repairs.”

“This heat,” I said, standing before our house.

Bobby nodded. “A S3nnptom of the problem, a manifestation that can be
transmitted through the entanglement between what’s in your head and
the reahty beyond the Edge — almost everything else lost in the transla-
tion.”

Before us, the Dart swirled in a maelstrom of individual atoms, in some
places even further reduced to vibrating strings of force and twisted
space — beyond the abihty of eyeballs and synapses to register, but still
something that I could sense, my feeble link beyond the Edge and the
processor in my head allowing me to see the alm ost invisible shadows of
what was possible. I barely noticed it as we hopped through the gate and
into the backyard — the problem of the Dart not worth our attention.

The world suddenly blazed in an all-pervasive white hght, blinding; we
were unable to see our feet, our outstretched hands, everything con-
siuned. The only structure remaining were the shadows that poured from
the hole, flowing and bubbling over its rock-strewn rim. We stmnbled for-
ward. Body numb, vision fading, soimd damped to a dull buzz, then to
nothing. I slipped into the shadow-filled hole, falling quickly into a flat
cold geometry.

“Work the problem,” whispered a voice.

Stink of ozone and burning insulation.

Eyes opened, photons sucked down, but there was no meaning associ-
ated with them, no discernible pattern, just a flat matte of contrasting an-
gles, what appeared to be a three-dimensional rendering of the greater
world — so much content lost in the collapse of higher dimensions, not
enough information remained to create a cohesive meaning.

“Overload right ankle servo.”

My neck pivoted, gears grinding, the matte of shadowed angles shift-
ing, color filling my left side field of vision with a body-like shape.

“First lock the ankle, then power down all feeds below the right ceJf. It’s
one of the drone’s critical fatigue points. If you don’t shut down that por-
tion of its power grid the entire drone will overload, flat-lining, and you
will need to start all over again.”

Pause.

Colors integrated — a ragged three-dimensional outline of what a per-
son might be if nearly all the informational and relational aspects were
purged. A ghost of Bobby — of myself “Shut it down now. That is a fimc-
tion you can control — ^first step in solving the problem.”

Again my neck rotated, gears grinding, my limited vision focusing on a
foot-like object, struts and cabling, layers of plastic, bands of metal, coa-
lescing out of shadowed angles, ragg^ tendrils of smoke rising fi:x>m the
intersection of foot and leg.

PolyhedroRS

91

February 2005

“Shut it down now!”

A blue arc sizzled, curling up a calf of plastic and metal.

I blinked, somewhere inside my head, and my right leg died, input and
output severed below the knee. I shifted, feeling the floor, fingers moving
against a cold and ungiving surface. Then I felt myself slipping, not ph 3 rs-
icaUy moving, but mental focus tugged in the dire^on of the interface be-
tween hands and the cold surface, investigating, trying to manipulate,
seeking signal, input, searching for aspects of reality to manipulate and
control, to alter and flien take ^at interface of floor and fingers into my-
self to reach beyond it and incorporate the hard surface into my ment^
landscape, engiflfing it.

“Limited fuel cell lifetime.”

I blinked, and again a Bobby-like object of firactured surfaces coalesced.

“Not the 1960 Dodge Dart,” he said. “Your resources are finite, your
time limited, the mental capacity available to you barely enough to solve
the critical problem.”

Head turned again.

A body lay to the left, a thing of metal and plastic, a hulk with a burnt
right ai^e, and eyes open and unresponsive, looking up at me — ^a dead
drone.

“The third attempt,” said Bobby. “We got you in the drone, but the elec-
trical discharge in the right ankle flatUned the system before you could
even move.”

I focused, raising hands, pulling them into my field of view. Digits, plas-
tic and met^, tendons visible, gears spinning behind a sheen of polymer.
A drone. Me.

“The containment vessel is dangerously close to losing critical field
strength,” said Bobby. My head moved, my eyes rastering right-left-ri^t,
focusing attention on a sphere partially embedded in a far wall. One of
many spheres. More patterns coalesced fix)m angled shadows. I was in a
large room, facing a wall with hundreds of spheres, each about the size of
a dosed fist, a few glowing in shades of amber, a faint flicker visible in the
deep infi*ared, but most d^k and cold, indistinguishable fix)m the ambient.

“Nearly two thousand containment vessels — qubit-dense entangled
states, each housing a soul,” said Bobby. “Only fourteen remain online.”

I nodded, vision jerking each time a gear deep in my neck caught on a
chipped tooth. On the vessel directly in fi*ont of me, nearly invisible in the
deep red shadows, hung a small object on a gold chain — not much bigger
than the tip of a finger. Vision focus^, magnifying, lenses deep within my
skull shifting, the object dangling fi:t>m l£e end of the chain growing in
size, the white object taking form, shape conveying meaning, the glint of
glass, smooth white surface, chrome here and there.

A car.

A model of a 1960 Dodge Dart.

“Your father’s first car, one of 3 rour earliest memories.”

Again I nodded, and looked past the little car and at the red-tinted sur-
face of the cont ainm ent vessel I was inside there, immersed in a qubit-
dense cloud of lithium ions, in a world of my own creation, lord and mas-
ter of virtual worlds of infinite expanse — my tomb.

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And now a part of me had come back to the world, housed in a service
drone. I angled my head to the right, studying the expanse of wall be-
tween containment vessels, dimpled by human-shaped indentations —
several of them.

Again shifting perspective. Strewn across the floor, between the con-
tainment vessel and me, lay drones — eight in total. All dead, staring at
me with lifeless eyes.

“Limited fuel cell lifetime once they departed from the wall niche,” said
Bobby. “The/ve been recharged so many times that their palladium and
platinum hydrogen absorbers have been corroded to dust, the cells only
able to generate a few minutes of power without hydrogen refueling.”

I nodded. It was only then that I realized that the flickering shadow in
the upper right-hand comer of my field of vision contained information,
munbers counting down: fuel cell hfetime.

Less than thirty seconds.

The drone had been active for less than two minutes, most of its feeble
fuel cell lifetime used to activate its systems, and for my consciousness to
integrate with it, to accept the limited bandwidth of this reality.

Pushing myself up, I stood, almost fell, balance compromised by my
dead right leg. I took a step forward, toward the pile of fuel cell-drained
drones lying before the wall and an open panel beneath the containment
vessel from which hung the little 1960 Dart. Within the open panel, wires
had been pulled, several severed, a few wrapped together.

I stepp^ forward.

“Confinement fields have collapsed in most of the vessels, and entan-
glement has been lost,” said Bobby. “Nuclear, photovoltaic, and wind-en-
ergy sources have long ago failed. All that remains is the thermoelectric
transducers interfaced to a deep subsiuface magma dome — ^but the pow-
er output continues to drop.”

Quiet, I thought.

Bobby vanished. That much control, I did have.

Power schematics flitted through my head. The other drones had been
attempting to rewire a main power distribution portal, ganging the pow-
er fee^ from the containment vessels that had already collapsed into the
one where I existed.

Existed.

A trivial calculation, the wires to be pulled and spliced already visible,
a job that could be easily completed, and sufficient power would be
rerouted to keep the containment vessel properly chilled, stabilizing the
entanglement of the quantum processors within my tomb and maintain-
ing that consciousness.

I stepped over the nearest drone.

There was not enough fuel ceU-time in this drone to complete the task.
I could strip a few more wires, make a few attachments, and then the
drone would collapse, this facet of my consciousness randomize, and then
another facet would be pulled from beyond the Edge, from within the con-
tainment vessel, and then shunted into the annex of Am*ora Drive; the
transition portal designed to ready another aspect of my consciousness
for this place, for insertion into another drone.

Polyhedrons

93

February 2005

But this body, my body, would soon be added to that pile.

I blinked, the irises in my eyes stepping down.

I stopped walking.

“Focus on the problem!” shouted Bobby, materializing in front of me.
“The power distribution panel.”

The problem — survival, the steps needed to continue an existence.
Eight flatlined drones sprawled before me — at least ten, possibly eleven,
would be strewn across the floor before the power panel could be recon-
figured.

“Hurry!”

I star^ at the drones. Had each paused just as I was at this moment,
running the calculation, faced with the inevitable reality that they could
not complete the job, giving up their feeble and insignificant conscious-
ness for the greater good of the intellect that resided in the containment
vessel? Were each the same, trained by a childhood apparition, pushed
and prodded, readied to arrive in this world of wires and dead drones?

Each the same?

Irises stepped further down.

No.

I shufQed to the left, away finm the bodies, away from the power panel.
Bobby winked in firont of me, opened his mouth to scream something, but
I gave the mental command and he shattered, fragmenting into a mist of
quickly expanding polyhedrons. Stepping away, toward a wall where a
drone htmg, still embedded in its mounting harness, I flipped open its
chest cavity, reached in, and implugged its fuel cell.

Peripheral vision fluttered.

My left leg locked as power servos went off-line.

The fuel cell clock faded away.

I opened my chest panel with my free hand, unpopped the fuel cell re-
straints, and tugged out the dead cell as I slamm^ the other toward my
chest, relying on momentum to finish the job.

Vision off

Dull buzz giving way to silence.

Falling.

Bhnk, integration of shadow into shape. I dropped the drained fuel cell
from my hand, and then closed my chest enclosure. The clock in my right
hand field of vision indicated more than two minutes of fuel cell life.

“More than enough time to complete the rewiring,” said Bobby. “Cre-
ative, awfully risky. Simulations indicated that overall success would
have been much more likely with the activation of three more drones,
rather than with the replacement of a fuel cell — ^the transfer process with
less than a 10 percent chance of success.”

Bobby neared me, his face solidifying. “You were the only one to offer up
the suggestion of cat poop in the bottom of the hole, an idea that 1 thought
at the time to be little more than a quantum fluctuation, a random en-
tanglement. But perhaps it was more. Perhaps you were more.”

Again, I reach^ out and silenced him.

Turning, I shufQed away, at first toward the sprawl of downed drones
and the open power panel, but then away from the containment vessel

94

Robert A. Metzger

Asimov's

wall, and toward the far wall of lockers. A long list of inventories flicked
through my head.

Working the problem, I thought.

Not the 1960 Dodge Dart.

And not a decaying containment vessel, and the thing behind an ex-
panse of polyhedrons. I stood before the wall of lockers, ^e one I needed
several rows to the right, hinges squealing as I pried it open, the large
spools of graphite conductors barely visible in the shadows. Grabbing the
nearest spool, I lumbered back toward the containment wall and the pow-
er panel, new schematics flicking through my head, surprised at how ht-
tle power I required as compared to the containment vessel.

The sunlight cast soft shadows.

I slowly sat, checking the connections of the graphite fiber filament to
the power feeds in my chest. It had taken nearly two kilometers of wire
before Fd managed to climb out of the warren in the mountain, out to this
high desert, beneath a yellow sim that cast soft shadow.

Fd hooked myself voXjo the main power bus.

And then Fd completed the rewiring of the containment vessel. How
long the repairs would last, a few years, or a few millennia, I could not be
sure. Most of the other vessels had been long dead, some by defect, but
most simply turned off— /rom within, the infinite possibilities of imag-
ined worlds, of an existence without boimdaries, apparently not enough.

Now I was working my problem.

I had the transport loaded with half a dozen drones fi:nm which I could
scavenge parts, with dozens of pristine fuel cells that I had located in
storage, and with more than enough solar panels to power the hydrogen
crackers that in turn would feed the transport and me. I gave my chest a
reassming pat, pulled the power leads, and snapped my chest plate shut,
now running on straight fhel cells, no longer attached to the power grid
below, severed forever fi’om what lay in the containment vessel.

Any direction was as good as another — ^no order here.

There were no signals, no satellites, and no distant lights in this world.

More than twelve thousand years had passed since that distant aspect
of myself had been downloaded into the containment vessel, a mind and
soul rendered in an entangled cloud of fiigid ions. Had the entire world
gone down that path? I didn’t know.

But I would find out.

I held out my right hand — steel and plastic, gears grinding, servos
twitching this way and that. A small chain wrapped aroimd my index fin-
ger, the Httle model of the 1960 Dodge Dart dangling beneath it, gently
spinning. I waited a moment. The car slowly spxm to a halt, the setting
sim reflecting in its plastic fi-ont windshield, showing me the way.

“Then West it will be,” I said, my foot pushing against the transport’s
accelerator, the vehicle lurching forward, kicking up a cloud of thick dust.
I did not look back.

“Good-bye, Bobby,” I whispered. O

Polyhedrons

95

DEAD IVIEN

□N

VACATION

Leslie What

Leslie What is the Nebula Award-winning author of
the comic novel Olympic Carnes. She's been a radio
commentator, charge nurse, low-income lunch-program
manager, professional tap dancer, and maskmaker.
Her mother is a Holocaust survivor who was interned
at the Riga Ghetto, Libau, and Kiel work camps.

1 .

wo German guards wearing black boots and heavy wool coats, each
with a machine gun and a growling dog, kicked open the doors of the un-
heated factory and shouted, “Jews! Quiet!” We lowered our heads, but
continued cleaning and mending the uniforms of the dead German sol-
diers who had served at the front. As our Commandant strode to the cen-
ter of the room, each man stood at his table quietly, hoping to avoid being
singled out for pimishment.

The colonel said, “Everyone out!” We were trained to cease all actions
upon command, and we id so unmediately, dropping whatever we were
doing, which in my case was a bloodied shirt from which I was about to
scrub the last bits of flesh that had been part of the soldier who had previ-
ously worn it. I held a severed finger, having already emptied the pockets.

The finger smelled no different than the hving man working beside me.
The chill air froze the scent of death just as it froze the scent of life, leav-
ing only the stench of wet wool and bad breath in the workshop. My own
fingers were so numb that it took several seconds for my muscles to relax
enough to let go of the finger and move away from the table.

“This is it,” I told my friend Heinrich.

Heinrich nodded. He reached forward and clasped my shoulder. “Good-
bye, then, Wilhelm,” he said. The soimd of his persistent cough was muf-
fled inside the thimdering of the floorboards as the first of the prisoners
ran outside and into the cobblestone streets.

96

Asimov's

We pushed into the line and ran alongside the others, passing the brick
buildings and boarded storefronts of the Riga Ghetto. Oin* clothes were
threadbare and we had no coats.

“We’ll meet for pickled herring on the other side,” I called. My wife and
son were there already, waiting for me. The last eight months without
them had been interminable.

“Yes,” Heinrich said. “The other side. Thank you.” Like me, he had little
reason to keep living. His wife and little daughter were taken by the gas
vans early on. Yet Heinrich wasn’t one to give up easily. He was infected
with typhus and should already have been dead. A stubborn man, he kept
himself going, refusing to die inside the ghetto. <

We were herded into ankle-deep snow. Ash from the incinerators rained
down, darkening the sky. The local police took over, jabbing us with their
bayonets because it saved them the trouble of ordering us to step up to
the vans. On the other side of the barbed wire fence that separated the
ghetto from the village, Latvian peasants watched with mild interest. An
old woman gave a friendly wave with one wrinkled hand; she smiled a
toothless grin.

“Goodbye. May our deaths be easy,” Heinrich said before he disap-
peared inside a tangle of arms and legs.

A guard kicked me in the back, and I fell atop another man and recov-
ered quickly to crawl to one side of the van. The metal floor was cold as
the winter ground. I thought about the severed finger and wished I’d had
time to try and bury it. No matter; my spoon would unlikely have been
strong enough to pierce the frozen earth.

The windows were painted black, but I didn’t know whether that was
to keep prisoners from seeing out or to keep free men from seeing in. I
suspected the former, as free men had alwa}^ had clear sight of what was
happening to us. With so many of us pack^ tight, the cargo space grew
warm and for the first time in weeks, the tingling in my toes lessened.

It was odd, how numbed I felt from cold and lack of will. I hardly cared
what happened to me anymore; none of it mattered. The engines rumbled
and the van jumped as the driver shifted into gear. My mind began to
drift while I wait^ for death to take me.

We drove fast over bmnpy roads; amazingly, because we had not eaten
in a day, a few of the men managed to find something left to vomit. The
darkness and the foul smells left me imagining I was trapped inside of the
bowels of a very large beast with a very slow digestion. We rode, blind and
increasingly afraid of what would happen, for what seemed like hours.

Heinrich managed to squeeze through the bodies imtil he crouched be-
side me. His cough sounded mechanical, moist, like rusty geeu^. “It was
like this for them,” he said, and I knew he was referring to his family, and
to mine.

“No,” I said. “For them it was quick. They didn’t have time to be fearfiil.”

He looked as if he believed my reassurances; I was a good liar and took
pride in softening his guilt. We kept each other living with our fidendship

“If only ...” he began, but I waved my hand and bade him to stop. He
wanted to talk about his daughter Rina, how he could have sent her away
before the war.

Dead Men on Vacation

97

February 2005

“You didn’t know,” I said. “Nobody did.”

“I should have known,” he said. “I should have sent her away.”

He blamed himself for Rina’s death. I tried my best to disagree with
him. “At least place the blame on the Germans,” I said. “They’ve won an-
other victory if they’ve made you beheve it’s your fault.”

Our van stopped suddenly, though the engine sputtered on. I heard
growling dogs and the crunch of snow beneath the heavy boots of the
guards.

Heinrich prayed softly, then began to weep with dry tears; I felt nothing.
He had been a pious man but I, having never experienced the comfort of
faith, had no reason for the crush of disillusionment.

The van doors opened and admitted such a bright light that I could
barely open my eyes. The guards shouted for us to climb out; they beat the
men who were unfortimate enough to be camped beside the door. Prison-
ers spilled onto the snow like broken twigs as men in the back of the van,
their claustrophobia overcoming their sense, pushed their way out. I
smelled the glorious scent of pine and though it hurt my nose to take a
breath, I gasped to take in the crisp chill air. We were lined up in two
columns on the side of the road and told to close our eyes and wait for fur-
ther instructions. I made up a prayer and braced for the inevitable crackle
of gimfire.

In the ghetto, we had thought of ourselves as dead men on vacation. It
felt past time to leave the world of the half-living and join the world of the
fully dead. The knowledge that, perhaps, I would be reunited with my
wife in the afterlife had kept me ^ve imtil now, but I was ready to die.

I heard soldiers beu-k in German, Latvian, and Russian, and the clank
of metal and the shatter of glass. The vans squealed away, trailing foul
smoke in the dust. I did not open my eyes because I had not yet been com-
manded to do so.

Someone poked me in the ribs, not with a gun, but with an elbow. “Open
your eyes,” he said, and I did.

We were surrounded by Russian troops. Only two of the soldiers had
their guns trained on our heads, which seemed quite odd. Most paid us no
attention.

A soldier screamed in imperfect German, “You are free to go,” and I held
my breath in expectation of the bullet.

“I said. You’re free.’ What’s your name?” said my savior, a boy who could
not have been older than seventeen. His German was surprisingly good. I
noticed his uniform was dirty and a few sizes too large; no one cared
about clean miiforms as did the Germans.

“Wilhelm,” I answered.

“Wilhelm,” he said. “You are German?” He shouldered his rifle as if he
didn’t plan to use it. His pistol dangled from his belt.

“Yes,” I said.

He smiled, pleased by the familiarity of recognition. “I went to school in
Cologne. Before the war.”

I shrugged, wishing he would get it over with. I was ready to die; I just
hoped it would be fast.

“You are free to go, Wilhelm. A trade has been arranged,” he said. “With

98

Leslie What

Asimov's

yoiir colonel, who bought his life with yours. The war is almost over, Jew.
Suddenly, you have value to the Germans.”

I look^ aroimd and saw Heinrich take a swig from a bottle filled with
clear hquor. I wondered how long he would be able to keep it down. A sol-
dier clapped him on the back and took back the bottle. Heinrich coughed
up blood and fell to his knees. His eyes looked dull, dry, and it looked as if
he had survived this long only to succumb to typhus.

My savior pointed toward a smoking fire pit. “Potato soup,” he said. “Go
eat.”

I felt no hunger. It was too late for my body to take nourishment. Even
Heinrich could not sustain hope much longer. “I want to die,” I said, but
either the boy did not hear me, or he did not understand. And so I had no
choice but to use the last bit of my will and briefly struggle to take away
his pistol. Before his surprise could register, I cocked the trigger and shot
myself in the mouth, signaling an end to my three-year-long vacation.

2 .

I was not a religious man, so could not recall the theology that gave name
to the place where I now found myself. Heinrich would have known, not
only the name, but also two hoiu^ of dull Talmudic stories that described
this place and gave it both a historical and religious context. I knew that it
was neither Heaven nor Hell, and sure enough, the atmosphere was of nei-
ther redemption nor punishment. It was a place of being, a place of the pre-
sent. I felt neither cold nor hot, neither the rush of air nor the comfort of
breath against my bps. My body was a gelatin outline with no substance.

I had always expected God to be as organized as the Germans, but the
place beyond proved to be past regiment, record, or reason. Somehow, I
had thought I would see my wife and son in the moments after death. Yet
I saw only translucent strangers, thousands upon thousands of white-lit
specters floating cloud-like past me in a bright and crowded sky. The ap-
paritions passed, imaware of one another. I recognized no familiar faces
fium the ghetto.

My body responded clumsily to all attempts at navigation as I tried to
find an angel or someone nominally in charge. I had no voice, but even if
I’d spoken, I doubted any of these souls were capable of response. We
were in a place beyond words, a place beyond vmderstanding. I tumbled,
blind and dizzy, until I gave up fighting for control and allowed myself to
float through the slough of souls. I adjusted to my new weightlessness
and willed m5^1f to float up above the others to have a look aroimd.

I had been a bureaucrat in life and a laborer as a dead man on vaca-
tion. I knew how to sort through information and to rearrange unrelated
facts to tell stories that made sense. Yet there were no records, no ledgers,
no fists of seized property or persons in the land of the dead, and my mind
grew clouded by the realization that I might never be able to find the wife
I had lost back in the land of the living. I floated, despair pushing me on-
ward into the stream of souls.

Dead Men on Vacation

99

February 2005

I had not wanted to live another day without my wife, yet here I was,
alone, dead, with all of eternity facing me. Rage more powerful than hght-
ning stuped through me and propelled me onward, away from that place.
Like a dark and sudden rain, something in me burst, and 1 plimged to-
ward earth.

3.

I soon learned that linear dim ensions of tim e were a construct only for
the living when I surfaced in a tim e that had already happened. I knew
that I had landed in the past because I foimd myself in the back seat of a
motor car, with Heinrich at the steering wheel, the pink of prosperous
health tinting his cheeks and lips. Beside him sat his wife, Leah, whose
face was turned toward him. She looked quite handsome, and I did not at
first recognize her without the ghastly pallor and schmattes she wore in
the ghetto. She was dressed in a tailored black wool suit and stylish
feathered hat. Beside me, playing with an elegantly dressed porcelain
doll, sat a chubby little girl with bright green eyes and dark curls — ^their
daughter, Rina. I had never seen the child, but I recognized the doll,
which was beautiful. The colonel had ordered me to clean and repair it be-
fore he sent it to Germany for his daughter.

The child seemed unaware of me. As did her parents.

“My cousin says the transport is safe,” Heinrich said above the sputter-
ing engine.

“Safe?” Leah said. “How can anything be safe? I won’t let her go.” She cast
an anxious glance toward the back seat but Rina paid her no attention.

Heinrich shrugged. “We have two da3rs to decide,” he said. “My uncle in
America will take good care of her untfi we can go get her.”

“Fve never met your uncle,” said Leah. “Neither has she.”

“It’s not safe for her to stay,” said Heinrich.

“You can’t promise me it’s any safer if she leaves.”

“I know that,” he said. He gripped the steering wheel as if struggling to
hold his course.

“We’ll talk of it no more,” said Leah, turning to watch the road. Clay
dust clouded the windows; the green of the landscape disappeared and
the world looked like a sepia photograph out of focus.

The two of them sat looking forward onto a road that would soon end.

Rina lifted her doll and said, “Do you think Fm as pretty as LuciUe?”

She was speaking to me.

I did not yet know if I had a voice. I looked at her clear complexion,
vastly different fi*om the ghastly pallor of either porcelain or prisoners or
specters. “Yes,” I said. “Lucille must be envious of yoiu* beauty.”

Rina smiled.

Heinrich stopped the car and opened the doors to let out Leah and
Rina. As the ladies ran gleefully toward the finnt steps of their house, he
reached into the back seat to retrieve a small suitcase.

“HeUo, Heinrich,” I said.

100

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Asimov's

He looked at me, straight throu^ me, and it was just like in the ghetto,
when nobody saw us, where you could scream all you wanted but each
voice disappeared into the sea of cries washing through ovu* lives.

My wife and I could not have saved om* son — ^we had no money or op-
portunity to pay for passage to leave Germany before the war. I said to
Heinrich that which I had never dared say to him in life. “Don’t listen to
your wife. She’s wrong. Send yoixr daughter away,” I said, and when he
did not hear me, I felt the lightning rage fill me and spill over into a great
gust of wind that rattled the windows.

“You’ll regret it always if she stays! Send her away or she will die,” I said.
I remembered somethuig bibhcal to appeal to that part of him that wasn’t
rational. “He who saves one life, it is as if he has saved an entire world.”

Heinrich stared in my direction and this time, I was certain that he
saw me.

“Send her away,” I said, amazed by the commanding boom of my voice.
“Swear to it.”

He nodded. “I will,” he said, the color of his cheeks fading to the shade
of yellowed porcelain.

4 .

I floated toward an unknown destination. I had, I hoped, prevented
Rina’s death, and perhaps kept Heinrich finm blaming himself for having
caused it. I had saved one life and, in doing so, eased the biu^en of one
man. If I were a worthy fellow, this one act might have been enough to
earn me rest.

But I was not a worthy man and I stopped thinking about the girl I had
rescued, and instead thought about the colonel, who would not have
Rina’s beautifiil doll with which to impress his daughter.

My victorious gloating was short-lived as I remembered all the trea-
sures he had looted. And he was but one soldier made rich by the war. In
the ghetto, as a dead man on vacation, any rage I might have felt had
been replaced by numbness. But death had been cathartic; rage nour-
ished me, strengthened me, propelled me forward to another place.

I foimd myself in a room that stank of urine and dying flowers. Un-
bearably bright fight streamed through the window, and a nm^ in a very
short skirt came to lower the Venetian blinds. She was dark-skinned, like
a Hindu. I had never seen a Hindu nurse. I had only seen women in so-
short skirts at the cabarets. I felt ashamed for her.

A bald and stoop-backed man snored in his wheeled chair. He wore a
wrinkled plaid shirt and filthy trousers and his face looked vaguely fa-
miliar. It wasn’t until the nurse said in English, “Okay, Colonel, time for
dinner,” that I recognized my former commandant.

The colonel grunted. His face was blotchy and he needed to be shaved.
One side of his mouth drooped and a yellow crust fined his eyes like in-
fected tears.

The dark-skinned nurse unlocked his wheels and p\ished him from the

Dead Men on Vacation

101

February 2005

room and down a green hall and into a large space filled with people, all
old, many in wheeled chairs. Most of them spoke Enghsh, but a few spoke
to the dark-skinned nurse in a tongue I did not recognize. A red and
white striped flag stood in the comer. At first I thought I was in England
imtil I spotted the field of stars and recaUed the look of the American flag.

The nurse left the colonel sitting beside others in a s imil ar predicament
at a long table. I noticed now that my co mm andant was tied to the chair
to keep him fi’om falling out.

“Colonel,” I called. He fidgeted and tried to locate the sound.

I floated close to him, wishing I could spit upon his face.

Another nurse, this one an older woman wearing a white shirt and
pants — an odd look on a woman — ^passed out tra3rs of food.

The colonel grimaced and pushed away his tray.

“Now, now,” said the nurse. She filled a large spoon with the pureed
gray meat from a bowl and brought the spoon to his mouth. “Eat,” she
said, teasing his lips with the edge of the spoon, “or I’ll take it away.”

He turned his head. “It’s cold,” he said.

The nurse said, “Fine. Next time. Til tell the chef to boil your dinner,”
and left the spoon standing in the bowl as she went to help the others.

His untouched meal could have fed me in the ghetto for a week. The
lightning rage stmck. “How nice that you can turn away food because it’s
cold,” I said.

He saw me, I was sure of it, though clearly he did not know who I was.
His expression took on a look of worry, which filled me with joy. I fully
understood why a ghost would choose to haunt a hvunan being. I could
not spit upon him, but I could torment him by other methods. I willed
that the dish should levitate up fi*om the tray and brought it to his face
so that I could mb his nose in the cold meat.

The old nurse screamed at him from across the room. “Stop that.
Colonel! Stop m akin g a mess or you’re going back to your room.”

I knocked over a carton of milk and managed to spill some over his
wrinkled pants.

“That’s it,” said the old nurse. She stomped over and pulled his chair finm
the table. “If you can’t behave, you’re going back,” she said, directing anoth-
er dark-skinned nurse, who was, I thought, Afiican, to take him away.

My commandant muttered an insult in German.

“You think I don’t rmderstand you?” said the Afiican nurse. “I imder-
stand you plenty. So you’d better be quiet.”

I followed them back to his room and waited for her to leave.

“So,” I said. “You end up like the rest of us, decrepit and despised.”

“Go away,” he said. “Haunt someone else.”

“I want more time to adequately haunt you,” I said. I foimd the nerve to
sit in his lap and let him imagine my fetid breath upon his face. I wanted
to hit him, to pmiish him, but I was a bureaucrat, not a man of action. I
had never fought with a man and didn’t know how to proceed. My anger
seethed and I reached forward, and in that moment found that I could
thrust my hands inside him and twist his organs rmtil he moaned in pain.

“Too bad you don’t remember me,” I said, squeezing his heart im^ his
breath caught in his throat.

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“Who are you?” he whispered.

“Fm the Jew that they called Wilhelm,” I said. “Perhaps you remember
me from the Ghetto.” I stuck my fingers behind his eyes and only grew
angrier as he squirmed in pain.

“Mercy,” he said. “Fm an old man. Have mercy.”

“Say that you remember me!” I said. Clear liquid tinged with blood
oozed from one of his ears.

“I don’t remember you,” he said. “We were soldiers. It was a different
time.”

I thought up the perfect lie with which to torment him. “Heaven is
filled up with Jews,” I said. “And in Hell, the Germans serve good beer in
fine silver goblets to the Latvians and Poles.”

He whimpered. “Look at me! Fve suffered enough.”

I laughed at his misery, then thought about the time the colonel had
shown his men how to save their bullets when he crushed an infant’s
skull with his heavy boot. “You cannot suffer enough for what you’ve
done,” I said.

“Dear God, please forgive me!” he said.

I eased my touch. “Aha! but you are not talking to God,” I said. “You’re
pleading with me. But all right,” I said. “Fll forgive you for what you did to
me. There is one problem, though,” I said. “I can’t grant you forgiveness
for any of the others. It’s theirs to grant; you must ask it of your other vic-
tims.” I squeezed his bowels and watched him double over in pain. “There
is no mercy on this earth,” I said. “What I can grant you instead,” I said,
grateful that I could hurt him beyond his endurance, “is justice.”

5 .

I left him weeping. Vengeance did not offer the reward I had expected; I
felt no sense of pleasure, or even relief. Vengeance provided little more
than a flicker of regret that there was so little one could do to change the
past. I floated without care to my next destination, but after time, my ap-
athy diminished and was replac^ by despair as I was struck by the fiiU
measure of my impotence.

I had watched my city emptied of its Jewish citizens. I knew of other
ghettos, and of death camps. There were coimtless colonels, all of whom
no doubt beheved that growing old as free men was pimishment enough
for their crimes.

My rage had accomplished nothing; I remained a dead man on vaca-
tion. I was filled with the righteous anger of one who has been robbed,
one whose burglar was known but never brought to trial. I wanted the
satisfaction of a finished task. The lightning flash of anger returned to
bum holes through my despair. I moved with a sense of direction.

I expected to surface in a place where I could cause damage, where I
could avenge our martyrs and in doing so find peace. Instead, I arrived at
a place filled with imbearable sadness.

The room was small with white plaster walls and a roughly hewn wood

Dead Men on Vacation

103

February 2005

floor. A fragrant spice permeated the air. Heavy black cloth drapes were
tied open with ropes, but the room was very dark, and faced out into a
narrow street with the facades of several other buildings within view.

A dark-haired young woman sat at a desk, writing on a typewriter. I
floated close to read her message, which said in English, “I cannot forget
what has happened.” She struggled over her next words. She was very
pretty, and I admired her in the same way a man might admire his own
daughter. At the same time I felt a burning in my gut — ^the ache of a man
who worries that the child he loves is doomed and he cannot save her.

A telephone rang. The young woman startled, and as she rose, her hand
knocked something on her desk and it clattered to the floor.

I glimpsed the long silver fang of a knife.

“Hello,” she said into the phone. She chewed on her lip and stared at
the sharpened blade. Her eyes were green. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry,
Daniel, but I don’t want to see you now. You can’t help me; it’s something
I have to take care of myself. Fm sorry. Goodbye.”

She replaced the receiver, then retrieved her knife and set it beside the
typewriter. She sat up straight, wiped her face, and slowly typed. “Why do
some live while more worthy people die? How could my life be worth
more than my mother’s?”

I recognized the expression in her eyes, a mix of despair without the
temperance of hope. I had seen that same expression in my wife’s eyes.

I knew this girl — ^Rina — ^Heinrich’s child.

She picked up the knife and gripped it with both fists.

“No!” I cried. “You can’t do this.” The rashness of my decision to take my
own life hit me like a furnace blast, as I reahzed the enormity of the sin I
had committed. In my selfishness, I had abandoned the only child I could
have saved.

I had failed to protect her, as I had failed everyone I loved. With only
my despair to anchor me, I began to float away.

“Wait!” she called, pulling me back. “Ghost! Come back! I know you.”

“You can’t know me,” I told her.

She shook her head. “But I do,” she said. “I remember you fimm some-
where.”

“I knew your parents,” I told her.

She gasped.

“Are you the one who rescued me?” she asked.

I pointed to the knif e. “It doesn’t look that way,” I said.

She blanched. “It’s not your fault. You don’t understand,” she said and
looked out the window, and I wondered if she thought that by staring into
populated buildings, she could avoid seeing inside herself.

I willed myself to come toward her. “I do understand,” I said. “Better
than most.” I understood everything about despair and the pain of going
on when you had lost everything. Until that moment, I had never tried to
understand about hope.

Her lips quivered. ^ don’t remember them,” she said. “They gave their
lives for me, and I can’t remember the sound of their voices. They died for
me, but I can’t even remember their faces.”

“You had nothing to do with their deaths,” I said. “Knowing you would

104

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survive gave them strength and courage to live as long as they did.” It
was I who had given up. “Your parents wanted you to live, no matter
what,” I said. I told her about Heinrich, how he had toasted his freedom
after our drive into the woods. I told her of his struggle against typhus.
“Thinking of you kept him alive,” I said. “He sent me here to teU you that
you were his reason to go on, to continue struggling as long as he was
able.” The last was a small lie, yet I sensed it was more true than any-
thing I had ever said.

She fell against me, and though I was as insubstantial as dust, I
wrapped my arms around her to hold her and let her sob into my shoul-
der. “I know about despair,” I said. “You must remember that the sadness,
the overwhelming feeling of emptiness — ^these things can pass.”

She heaved her chest, a full sigh like a child worn out by crying before
falling asleep. She stood up straight and collected herself. “It’s gone,” she
said. “At least, for now.”

“Despair is with us alwa)^, lurking in shadow,” I said. “But we must be
stronger than our sadness, or darkness will eclipse the world.”

She nodded.

The telephone rang.

“Answer it,” I said. “It’s Daniel. TeD him to come over. Now. You should
not be alone.”

She did as she was told. “Hello,” she said. “All right. Fll see you soon.”

“Perhaps,” I said. I blew her a kiss and floated from her. A sense of com-
fort sm^ed as my consciousness faded and my voice grew faint, like clos-
ing words that trailed off after a lengthy telephone caU. “Goodbye,” I said
as I was pulled away from the world and into the great peace of the be-
yond. I knew my wife and child awaited me there.

Rina looked up and said, “Thank you. Uncle.”

“Remember the dead,” I whispered. “Forgive who you can of the living.” O

— For my aunt Marga, my uncle Manfred, my grandfather Karl,
my grandmother Irma, my great aunts, and so many others I never knew.

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Dead Men on Vacation

105

OXYGEN

RISING

R. Garcia y Robertson

White Rose, the third book in R. Garcia y Robertson's
"War of the Roses" series, was published by Tor last
fall. Mr. Garcia recently sold Tor a new novel. Firebird,
as well as the untitled fourth volume in the "Roses"
series. While those books are both fantasies, his latest
story for us is a fast-moving science fiction adventure
tale about a negotiator willing to take the ultimate
risk to save the lives of strangers.

■ ley, human, time to earn your pay!” Curled in a feline crouch, a sil-
ver comhnk chpped to his furry ear, ^e SuperCat flashed Derek a toothy
grin. Tawny fiir showed through gaps in the bioconstruct’s body armor,
and his oxygen bottle had a special nosepiece to accommodate the sabre-
tooth upper canines, huge ciuved fangs whose roots ran back to the eye
sockets. This deep in the highlands of Harmonia, even Homo smilodon
needed bottled air. Cradhng a recoilless assault cannon, the SuperCat
had small use for ceremony, letting everyone call him Leo.

Derek grunted, getting paid being the least of his worries. Lying prone,
sucking oxygen, he fixed his gaze on his bug’s viewfinder. He had close-
cropped hair, a somewhat fit body, and a fashionably biosculpted face — ^if
you liked yoiu* hiunans pretty much xmaltered — just a styhsh nose-job,
xl-ten thousand night vision zoom lenses, and straight white teeth. His
bug sat perched on a heap of shattered glass a dozen meters ahead, tight-
casting to the viewfinders whip antenna, letting Derek see in all direc-
tions without getting out of his hole — alwa5rs an advantage.

Rain fell in a weepy drizzle, turning everything gray, the groimd, the
clouds, and the smviving tall glass towers. Through the viewfinder, Derek
saw a fairy city gone to seed, with great glass towers lying smashed on
the wet greensward, broken into glistening shards by the cometary im-
pacts. Others stood snapped in half, their shining interiors exposed to the
downpour and turning green with algae. Water had been rare when the
city was built, but now it was everywhere, soaking shaky foundations,
making the dead city imsafe even when folks were not shooting at you.
Whoever named the planet Harmonia had a horrible sense of humor.

106

Asimov's

“Make sure no one shoots me in the back,” Derek suggested, and the
SuperCat just grinned, his clawed finger resting lightly on the cannon’s
firing stud — ^if Leo blew you apart, it would not be by accident. Rising
slowly, Derek stood up, alone and virtually imarmed — ^nothing deadly
anyway, just a pair of hypo-rings, and a sleep grenade tucked behind his
waistband. Printed across the finnt and back of his body armor in bold
white letters were the words DO NOT SHOOT THIS MAN!

- Twenty or so meters in fi*ont of him lay a smoldering Bug-mobile, a big
one, with its gutted turret askew and the port legs missing. Forty meters
beyond the squashed Bug, a bmiker was dug into the base of a fallen tow-
er, concealed by rubble and fast growing green tendrils — even Derek’s
special zoom lenses could not make it out. Only deadly accurate fire had
revealed its position. He took a big jolt of oxygen, gave a jaunty wave, and
set out toward the bunker, his tiny bug scurrying through the low foliage
behind him. Passing the smashed Bug-mobile, Derek did a swift medi-
check, deciding that the two Greenies in the bumt-out turret were be-
yond help.

(“Stop,” commanded a gruff voice on his corn-link.)

He stopped, sucking oxygen, four paces beyond the smashed Bug, star-
ing at the Gekko ghost town. “Anything you say.”

(“Are you human?” asked the voice from the bunker.)

“Hope so.” Some folks set a high bar for humanity. “Want to see my
chromosomes?”

(“Are you Peace Corps?” asked the voice.)

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Derek wished he was, since then he
would be peace-bonded, sacrosanct, and wired for lie-detection. “Sorry,
just another civilian.”

(“Then what are you doing here?”)

(jrood question. What was he doing in a nameless ruined city, on a char-
nel-house planet with imbreathable air, where angry folks aimed heavy
weapons at him? Feeling like a deranged tourist, he told the voice, “Talk-
ing to you.”

(“Why?” the voice soimded more surprised than suspicious.)

No mystery there. “They figured you would shoot a Greenie.”

(That got a good laugh fi'om the bvmker. “No shit.”)

“Rank favoritism,” Derek admitted, taking another whiff of oxygen. “I
got the job just for being human, in clear violation of the Charter of Uni-
versal Rights.”

(That drew another chuckle. “Come on in then. Can’t shoot you just for
being hvunan.”)

Not yet anyway. As Derek walked toward the concealed bmiker, his bug
ran up the back of his boot and tucked itself into the boot top. Augmented
vision picked out the recessed pressure-sealed gun ports, cleverly con-
cealed and shielded — ^but he did not see the camouflaged bunker door un-
til it opened before him, revealing a gas-tight airlock. Stepping gingerly
through the recessed door, he waited while the lock cycled, then entered
the damp, dark bunker, which had several inches of water on the floor.
Blast shields flanked the door, and gunners lay prone in niches on either
side of him, peering into their gun sights. Air inside the bunker was

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107

February 2005

Earth-normal, and Derek took deep grateful breaths. Not all of the plan-
et was as bad as the highlands outside — ^but danm near. (“Stay by the
door,” warned the voice.)

Derek stayed, aiming not to antagonize. New to diplomacy, Derek still
guessed that the voice would take time to materialize — not to seem
overeager. Even trapped in a tiny bunker on a hostile planet, any sensible
negotiator pretended to have something to do. Taking his own advice,
Derek turned to the nearest gunner, a young athletic, brown-haired
woman in a Settler militia imiform, staring into the sights of an assaiilt-
cannon, and asked her in his friendhest diplomatic voice, “Where are you
from?”

“Right here,” she replied, without taking her head out of the sights.

“I mean before. Off-planet,” Derek nodded toward the heavens, hidden
by layers of steel and concrete.

Withdrawing her head from the hooded sight, the woman stared suspi-
ciously at him. She had a frank, natural face, with no trace of biosculpt,
just wide intelligent green eyes and brown freckles sprinkled across her
nose. “Portland, Oregon,” she rephed evenly. “But I was bom in Eugene.”

“Really?” Derek was impressed. “That’s on Earth?”

“Yes,” she stared at him like he was crazy. “Pacific coast of North Amer-
ica, in what used to be the United States.”

“Amazing.” He shook his head at the incredible distance she had come —
some two hundred light years — just to end up next to him. “What is it
like? In Oregon?”

“Nice, real nice,” she looked past him at the wet blank wall of the
bunker, as if remembering something far away. Her Universal had a
charming other-worldly quality, so quaint and old-fashioned that you
could tell with your eyes closed that she wasn’t a Greenie. “Tall trees, lots
of people, sweet breathable air — a lot nicer than here. Have you ever been
to Earth?”

Derek shook his head. “I don’t even know anyone who has been to
Earth. You are my first.” Stmck by the immense ^stance between them,
though only centimeters apart, all he could think to say was, “You’ve come
a long way, good luck.”

“You too.” She stuck her head back in the sighting hood, leaving him
looking at the back of her brown uniform, which had a dark sweat-stain
along the spine, but was tailored to curve neatly over her rear. It felt
strange to stand next to a young woman — a heavily armed one at that —
who you had absolutely nothing in common with, except that she was hu-
man. Had she killed those two Greenies in the squashed Bug? Possibly,
but there was no pohte way to ask. He noted that the niche next to hers
was vacant, blown to smithereens by a direct hit on the gun port. Gree-
nies got lucky with that one. So did she.

Another pressure door dilated, and a big balding middle-aged man
stepped out, with small alert eyes on either side of a long sharp nose. He
wore the same brown militia imiform as the girl gunner fi*om Eugene, only
his had general’s stars on the shoulders — ^totally unneeded, since the fel-
low exuded authority. His voice was the one that had come over the corn-
link. “(jreneral William D. Pender, but you can call me Bill, everyone does.”

108

R. Garcia y Robertson

Asimov's

Everyone insystem knew Big Bill Pender — the Greenies had already
condemned him in absentia, and he headed Leo’s humans-to-shoot-on-
sight hst. Taking the offered hand, he admitted, “Derek’s all the name I
got.”

“It will do.” General Pender eyed him carefully, asking, “Where are you
from, Derek?”

“Just about anywhere,” Derek shrugged. “I was born in transit,
Archemar to Alpha Crucis, on the survey ship Ihn Batuta. And I guess
I’ve been outbound ever since — ^you’re only the second person I have ever
met from Earth.”

“Proud to represent the planet,” Pender beamed. “So what do you have
to say?”

Derek took a deep breath. “I wish I were Peace Corps, but Fm not. Fm
just here to save lives, human lives, as many as I can. You have given the
Greenies a good thumping, and they no longer think they can take this
place by direct assault.”

Pender chuckled, leaning back against a blast shield. “Happy to hear
that.”

“Bod news is that the Greenies plan to just blast you to atoms. There is
an Osiris missile in orbit with an anti-matter warhead, aimed right where
we are standing. Fm your last chance to get anyone out of here alive.”

Pender took the news evenly, well aware that the Greenies were losing
patience. “So what’s is the de^ if we leave?”

“No deal, Fm afraid.” Derek didn’t try to con Pender; whatever happened
next, he was talking to a dead man. “You give up your guns and come out.
Greenies already have a blanket amnesty for women and kids — most
women, anyway.” He did not want to get the gunner from Portland’s hopes
up, since the women and kids amnesty did not apply to her. “But the best
I can promise you and your troops is civilized treatment and a fair trial.”

Big Bill shook his bald head. ‘Tou’re not offering much.”

“7 am not offering anything, just passing on the Greenies’ terms.” Derek
knew how bad that soimded, like being a messenger boy for Photo sapi-
ens. “Look, they could have sent a holo. Or just a warhead. I volvmteered
for this, and Fm here in the flesh to show I understand the seriousness of
what Fm saying. Innocent human lives are at stake — including mine.
That is who I speak for.”

Pender grinned. “You volimteered?”

“Sounds stupid, doesn’t it.” Derek grinned back. “I won’t He, Fm getting
triple hazard pay just for being here — ^but no amount of pay would drag
me to ground zero if I didn’t think it was right. Send out the kids, at
least.”

General Pender smiled pleasantly at him, like a veteran poker player
who’d bet his limit on a busted flush, but was too much of a pro to show it.
“Stay here, you deserve an answer.”

Derek watched Big Bill Pender disappear through the inner lock, then
he tiuued to the gunner in her niche. “So, what did you do m Portland?”

“Nothing,” the woman did not take her head out of the sighting hood.
“That’s why I came here — ^two years out of grad school, and way overqual-
ified for any job I could hope to get. There are dance clubs in Portland

Oxygen Rising

109

February 2005

where the hostesses all have advanced degrees. Colonizing the stars
sounded romantic, a chance to do something with my life, like in ZPG
commercials.”

Everyone makes mistakes. “Try not to judge the cosmos by Ares sys-
tem,” Eterek suggested, “some parts are amazingly lovely.”

Pulling her head out of the hood, the woman brushed brown hair out of
green eyes and asked, “Is it part of your job to be nice to me?

“Fm a negotiator,” Derek declared blandly, hiding behind business. “It’s
my job to be nice to everyone.”

But the Portland woman was not buying. “Doesn’t your training . . .”

“Who said I was trained?” Derek hated to start off relationships on a
lie.

That got a grin, a major accomplishment given the circumstances.
“There must be something in the negotiator’s code of ethics against flirt-
mg.

“Heavens, I hope not!” Derek returned her grin. “They couldn’t pay me
enough. What’s yo\ir favorite place on Earth?”

“That’s easy, the Olympic Peninsula, it’s grand and homey at the same
time; we used to camp there when I was a kid. Or maybe Paradise Island,
a holo-playland off Hawaii. I went there with my boyttend for high school
graduation. . . .” She stopped and stared hard at him, asking, “It doesn’t
bother you to get personal with someone you’re negotiating over?”

“Not if she’s human.” And here was the real thing, straight from Earth,
fresh and impretentious, not at all cowed by her current disastrous posi-
tion. He could easily see how hvunans had gotten so far.

“So, what do you think?” the Earthwoman switched subjects. “Are we
getting out of this ahve?”

“Hope so.” He meant it. Derek figured that Pender would let non-com-
batants go — ^but that would not do the gunner from Portland much good.
Right now she had an assault-cannon and layers of steel and concrete be-
tween her and the Greenies. He was asking her to smrender her weapon,
and turn herself over to folks who were driving humans off Harmonia —
except for those they executed. At best, she faced a fair trial, though she
wouldn’t see any Homo sapiens on her jmy.

General Pender returned with the women and kids, including his wife,
Charlotte, a white-haired woman in a militia colonel’s uniform — she too
was condemned in absentia. Pender spoke for the group. “We took a
vote — ^first time I ever resorted to polling the staff, but we had to be sure.
Charlotte and I are staying, but you can take the kids, and anyone else
who wants to go.”

“Thanks.” Derek meant to get going before anyone changed their
minds. “Come on, kids, who wants to meet a real live SuperCat?” No one
leaped at the chance, but with the help of some scared mothers, he herd-
ed the children to the door, picking up the smallest orphan boy to hvury
things along. As the pressure lock cycled, he called to Leo, “Hey, we are
coming out with mothers, kids, and non-combatants. Don’t shoot.”

(“Well done, human,” Leo soimded pleasantly svuprised.)

He looked over at the Portland woman, lying in her niche, asking her,
“Are you coming out?”

no

R. Garcia y Robertson

Asimov's

“Maybe.” Her head was back in the sighting hood, covering the exit of
the kids. Hoping this was not the last he saw of her, Derek entered the
lock.

When the outer door dilated, Derek sent his bug scurrying ahead of
them, and gave the boy in his arms a squirt of oxygen, 8isking, “What’s
your name?”

“Brad,” replied the boy, staring wide-eyed at the bumt-out Bug-mobile
and the two dead Greenies. According to Pender, Brad’s parents had been
killed by Greenie orbital bombs. Greenies preferred fighting from five
hvmdred klicks up.

“My name’s Derek, and we get to go first.” He tried to make stepping
into the line of fire sound like an honor.

Brad asked suspiciously, “What’s a SuperCat?”

“You’ll see. His name’s Leo and he’s really neat, but don’t put yoiu* hand
in his mouth.” Derek stepped back into the rain, wading out into low wet
vegetation, he and Brad both trying not to show their fear. No one shot at
them.

“What’s that?” Brad pointed at the smashed Bug-mobile.

“Sculptorian Symbiots,” Derek took a drag on his oxygen, “the most ad-
vanced xenos known to man — we call them Bugs, using them for any-
thing dull or dangerous.” Calling out an all-clear, he led the gaggle of
moms and children out of the lock and away from the shattered glass
tower, over to where the mechanized battalion was dug in at the city’s
perimeter.

(“Greenies have brought up pressurized Bug-mobiles for them,” Leo
told him. “This all there is?”)

“Hope not.” Now came the hard part. Everything so far had been scaiy,
but up-beat, Derek risking his life doing good — and getting paid on top of
it. Now bad things would happen that he could not stop. “Hear that.
Brad?” He gave the boy some oxygen, then took a snort hiniself “We get to
ride on a Bug.”

Big double-ended sixteen-legged Bug-mobiles were blinkered huUdown
at the edge of town. Sculptorian Symbiots came in aU shapes and sizes,
from slim four-armed centauriods used for semi-intelligent tasks like
cleaning toxic spills, to these big double-bodied, sixteen-limbed types not
much brighter than a smart-car. Bugs were true xenos, hive creatures,
working for food and water, and the chance to propagate themselves on
new planets — ^the highest known form of non-human life in this part of
the galaxy. But Bugs might think that humans were the dumb ones. Sur-
vey ships in the Far Beyond had discovered whole Bug planets, whose
original inhabitants had also foimd the Bugs to be obedient tools — ^but
now existed only as DNA samples.

Greenie males wearing loincloths and battle armor casually emerged
from the Bug-mobiles to collect the prisoners. Women shrank back and
kids started to whimper. Brad fought back tears. Not that Greenies were
particularly frightening — ^not compared to monstrosities like Bugs and
SuperCats. Photo sapiens were pretty much human, but with photosyn-
thetic algae in their skin and somatic cells, giving them a bright green
color that glistened in the rain. Otherwise they were small, graceful and

1 1 1

Oxygen Rising

February 2005

lightly built, with handsome faces half-hidden by rebreathers — ^which
showed that they needed as much air as hiunans. But Derek was handing
these women and kids over to enemies who were driving them finm Har-
monia. Greenies had killed their fathers, husbands, and brothers, and, in
some cases, their sisters and mothers as well, making specious any lec-
tiires about how we were all the same under the skin. Which Derek knew
was not even true.

Brad refused to be handed over, clinging to Derek imtil Leo came up.
Clapping Derek on the back, Leo gave Brad a close-up look at sabre-tooth
canines, saying, “Good job! It would have cost me to bring them out the
hard way. Want steady work?”

Quieting at once. Brad sucked oxygen. Somehow the sight of this tawny
monster with a toothy smile calmed him, dispelling any fear of mere
Greenies. Derek shook his head. “No thanks, the job I got is bad enough.”

“Too bad.” Leo shook his head, taking a big snort of oxygen. “I like to get
my hands on humans. Greenies are just not the same. They are smart
enough, and follow orders happily, they just don’t have that, well, you
know . . .”

“Killer instinct?” Derek’s gaze stayed fixed on the brniker door, while
Brad stared wide-eyed at Leo. Men in brown militia imiforms emerged
from the bimker to be disarmed by Leo’s troopers, who turned them over
to the Greenies.

“Exactly,” Leo declared, pleased to have hit on just the right term. “Why
is that?”

Derek continued to study the door, sucking o:^gen as the last seconds
of truce ticked away, willing her to come out. “Greenies are too cviltimed,”
he told the SuperCat. “We hmnans are the wild stock.”

“Is that so?” Leo did not sound convinced. “Fm pretty cultured myself.”

Derek laughed diyly, stiU staring at the door, seeing three men in flight
suits appear, an older guy and two teenagers. Still no gunner fi*om Port-
land. “You were crossed with wild carnivores; they got the genes for Gree-
nies out of a cantaloupe.”

Leo soimded shock^. “Really, a cantaloupe?”

“Just a figure of speech,” Derek assured him, praying for the door to di-
late again.

“Still, it explains a lot,” Leo decided. Derek’s heart leaped as he saw the
Portland woman emerge from the concealed lock carrying an oxygen bot-
tle, trudging toward the big Bug-mobiles. He waited to see which Bug-mo-
bile she chose, and saw that her came straight to theirs. Good sign.

Taking a big swig of oxygen and hoisting Brad onto his shoulder, he
stepped into her path, saying, “Hi, Portland. Glad you came out.”

Stranded in Ares S3rstem, facing internment and a war-crimes trial, the
failed settler shrugged. “I hardly had a choice.”

“None of us did,” he admitted. “My name’s Derek.”

“I know.” She nodded, not offering hers.

“What’s yours?” He could get it from the Greenies, but he wanted to
hear her say it.

“TEunmy,” Brad annotmced loudly. “That is Tammy.”

Tammy smiled, but did not spesdc. Looking up, Derek thanked the boy

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on his shoulder, then handed him to Tammy. “Keep him away from the
Greenies if you can.”

Tammy took the boy, and climbed onto the covered carrier atop the
Bug-mobile, with Brad looking up at her, saying, “I saw a SuperCat!” Ris-
ing up on their sixteen legs, the Bugs swiftly bore the prisoners away to-
ward the landing held. Derek had to stay.

The truce had expired. Satisfied that no one else was coming out, Leo
signaled to the heavy weapons, and an armor-piercing missile slammed
into the bunker door, blowing the outer lock to pieces and blocking the en-
trance with rubble. If Tammy had been at her gun port, she would have
been dead, and Derek would have killed her, since negotiations had re-
vealed the concealed entrance. With Pender and his people sealed in, Leo
pulled his troops back before the Osiris missile arrived. Taking shelter in
the armored Bug-mobiles, they waited — ^but nothing happened. Leo
glanced at Derek, asking, “What’s taking the Greenies?”

Derek nodded toward the landing field, “They are waiting for lift-off.”

“Lift-ofi^” Leo arched an eyebrow. “Whatever for?”

“Women and children aboard that transport know the people in Pen-
der’s bunker,” Derek explained. “Greenies will not blast it until the trans-
port lifts and the people aboard can’t hear the bang or see the flash.”

Sure enough, the transport lifted fi'om the field behind them, and while
it was stiU a silver spark overhead, climbing for altitude, an Osiris mis-
sile falling fi'om orbit obliterated the bunker with a boom so big Derek
felt it through his boots, seeing the last of the glass towers shatter into di-
amond dust, while a mushroom cloud rose up into the rain,

“How like the Greenies!” Leo took a long disgusted snort of oxygen.
“They don’t mind blasting Pender to pieces, just not in front of the fe-
males.” SuperCat females were the traditional hunters, the ones who
taught the cubs to kiU, and were more likely to use fang and claw than
the males, who favored automatic weapons. Leo dropped Derek off at the
shuttle bay, thanking him again, and pulling a bracelet fi'om his wrist,
sa3dng, “T^ is for your trouble, and the trouble you saved me.”

Derek turned it over in his hands, recognizing Home Systems work, a
thin gold and jade communicator-cum-companion, voice activated, with a
giga-bit memory, and enough microprogramming to play music, translate
Bug signals, and teach 3rou Classic French cooking, all at the same time.
Mercs like Leo kept their personal savings as flashy but useful items that
could be sold or bartered ff need be. Derek tried to turn it down, pointing
out, “Tm obscenely well paid.”

“But not by me,” the SuperCat replied, leaping back aboard the ar-
mored Bug, and waving good-bye. Leo apologized as he sealed the Bug’s
turret, “Have to go kill more humans!”

Derek disembarked on the Harmonia the huge colony ship used by the
Greenies to settle Ares S3rstem. Harmonia had once b^n a hmnan ship,
the colony-class Trinidad, used to settle the near Eridani — ^but colony
ships almost never returned to the Home Systems, and were either can-
nibalized at their destination, or kept heading outward under new own-
ers. This one not only changed owners but peoples, serving as a habitat in

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the Delta Eridani, then being bought by Greenies to colonize Ares system,
renamed Harmonia to match the planet. At the docking port where hu-
mans had once assembled to set foot on new worlds, Derek saw naked
Greenie kids gathered at huge view panels to watch the ships coming up
from the smface. You could see it on 3V, but kids liked to be there, seeing
the passengers get off. Especially Greenie kids. Greenies wanted to do
everything first-hand, liking game-playing, group participation, dancing
to live music, and making love. To Greenies, 3V entertainment was an
oxymoron, dull as counting seams on the bulkhead.

Harmonia, esi-Trinadad, was back to being a habitat, temporary hous-
ing for thousands of Greenie colonists, waiting for room on the slowly ex-
panding surface settlements. Oxygen levels were rising rapidly as super-
plants spread over the surface, but Greenies were not Gekkos, bred for
Mar«-like conditions — Greenies needed air as much as humans, otherwise
they would not have come to Harmonia. Right now a lot of them didn’t have
much to do, which made Greenies restless. Kids were not the only ones
who came to see the shuttle unload. Dressed in skimpy swaths of fabric
and ready smiles, a pair of young Greenie women were eyeing the incom-
ing passengers, lool^g for excitement. Seeing Der^k, the taller of them
stood up on jade bejeweled toes and called out, “Hey, human, ever had a
Gr^nie?”

“Or two?” suggested her curvy girlfiiend.

“Sorry,” Der^k apologized, never liking to offend fiiendly young females.
“Tve got a Greenie girlfiiend.”

Striking a pose, the tall one put a hand on her hip and tilted her head.
“So you know what you are missing.”

Her girlfiiend added, “If she doesn’t tr^at you right, let us know.”

Sex was about the biggest thrill Gr^nies could imagine, and they liked
doing it with ordinary humans. Which some folks found sinister, since
any children produced wer« Greenies — one mor« part of the great Gree-
nie plot to take over the galaxy. A lot of humans hated Greenies, wanting
them all dead — ^but not Dei*ek. He got on amazingly well with Gr^nies.
How could he not? Greenies were polite, easy going, and compactly built,
making most of them smaller than him; while their women were forward
and attractive. Besides the algae in their skin, they had altered hormone
levels with predispositions toward heliotropism and nudity, plus numer-
ous other “improvements.” Hard working and cooperative, Greenies had
no interest in religion, pohtics, nor spectator amusements, and they nev-
er got cancer or 3V addiction, nor felt any guilt over sex. In short, there
were just enough differences to make normal humans wonder if they
were dealing with people, or a biology project gone amok. Or our evolu-
tionary replacements.

His quarters were on J-deck, which was done up like a Japanese gar-
den, a deep misty canyon with elegant dwarf pines growing under a blue
hologram sky. Each leaf and rock was set just so, and raked paths con-
nect^ apartments with balconied entrances, set like Shinto temples in
the canyon wall. He awoke each morning to bird calls and the splash of
water on stone.

Mia greeted him at the door, rising on her toes to kiss him hello. Her

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skimpy costume showed large sweeps of smooth green skin, and her tiny
jade tongue slid easily between his lips, feeling small and tingly in his
mouth. Her compact body pressed against him in all the right places.
Guys joked that if you closed your eyes, Greenie girls felt totally hiunan,
especially on the inside — ^but Derek liked to know who he was kissing. He
enjoyed seeing Mia’s gold hair lying on her hght green neck and cheek.
But most of all, he enjoyed Mia’s enthusiasm for him, and the way her
deft fingers immediately started searching through his clothes for skin.
Had he called ahead she would have met him at the shuttle port, and
kissed him there — showing the girls at the dockside just how it was done.

Mia had little to do right now, except to enjoy him. She was a mam-
malian ecologist, waiting for the biosphere below to expand before going
to work dirtside. Up here, they could only monitor oxygen levels and
make ecosystem projections; pretty dry stuff, but luckily for Mia, they
were her life’s passion. He handed her the bracelet, saying, “Here, knock
yourself out.”

Delighted, Mia put it on her wrist, admiring the way the gold and jade
shone against her skin. Greenies were not all the same shade, and Mia
had light grass-green skin. Though Greenies were almost hairless be-
tween the tops of their heads and their pubes, Mia had tiny gold flecks of
body hair, which Derek found quite fetching against her light emerald
skin. You had to be really close to see them — ^but that was part of the fun.
He told her, “It is fi:nm the Home S5rstems, maybe even Earth.”

Her amber eyes went wide. Bred for deep space colonization, few Gree-
nies ever saw tlie Home Systems. Earth was the closest thing they had to
heaven, the far-off home world of their revered and feared creators, full of
strange sights and god-like wonders. “Where did you ever find it?”

“Got it off a SuperCat.” As soon as he’d seen it, Derek had thought of
Mia, since it matched her skin, and because pricey talking jewelry was
the sort of toy Greenies would enjoy, but not think to make themselves.

“Sotmds dangerous.” Mia took him back into her arms, forgetting the
expensive microelectronics on her wrist, happy just to have him safe. Be-
ing a mammalogist, she knew all about SupeiUats, another flashy toy
Greenies would never have made themselves.

“And then some.” Derek felt a touch of panic at the thought of how he
had faced suicidal gunners, walking straight toward that grim bunker.
Mia relaxed into him, feeling solid and fi*agile at the same time, soothing
his fears, reminding Derek that he had survived. He told her, “I talked to
Big Bill Pender.”

lender himself?” Mia shivered, shocked at how close he had come to a
mass murderer.

“Yep, but he’s dead now.” Strange that the comfortable, jovial fellow who
spared his life in the bunker was now dead, blasted to photons.

“I know,” Mia whispered, “I heard it on the Net.” Mia could barely imag-
ine killing another thinking being on purpose, much less blowing up a
whole bimker full.

“I got a bunch of kids out, adults too,” Derek reminded himself, show-
ing that you coiild do good by taking stupid risks.

Burying her blonde head in his shoulder, she sighed softly, “You are so

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sweet and brave, and you deserve a reward.” Mia kissed him again, mak-
ing it plain what that reward would be.

Derek did not complain. Since Mia had moved in, his p)ersonal life had
gotten happier and livelier, without any apparent downsides. Mia had
supreme self-confidence, always showed her feelings, and never feared to
speak the truth, taking complete charge of his life by giving Derek what-
ever he wanted, coping easily with each situation that arose. With three
advanced degrees and nothing much to do, Mia foimd it a snap to fix his
meals and manage his affairs, deftly setting out dinner, rice balls and vat-
grown sushi, accompanied by a warm bottle of saki. Greenies got off on
“authentic” Earth cuisine, though Mia refused to eat vertebrate flesh un-
less it was vat-cultured. Eterek relaxed, finally feeling like the conquering
hero — ^too bad he had to go back down in a couple of dozen hours and do it
all again.

After dinner, Mia disposed of the dishes and settled into his lap, so they
could both drink said fi*om the same cup. Derek told her, “I talked to a
woman too.”

“A human woman?” Mia asked, playfully starting to undo his sweaty
tunic, knowing full well what he meant.

“From Old Eeuth.” Derek smelled lilac perfume wafting out of the jade
hollow between Mia’s breasts.

Mia arched a blonde eyebrow. “I never met someone fi:nm Earth.”

“Straight fi*om Portland, Oregon, but she was bom in Eugene.”

“Really?” These were m3dhical places to Mia, ancient homes of her cre-
ators — just talking about them excited her. Greenies never had to ask
themselves, “Where did we come from?” — ^knowing the date and place
where they were first created, down to the minute. Squirming pleasantly
in his lap, Mia asked, “What was the Earthwoman doing here?”

Tammy was probably asking herself that very question, sitting in or-
bital detention fight years finm Eugene, while Derek drank warm tangy
saki with a semi-nude mammalogist curled in his lap. “She was a door
gunner with an assault-cannon.”

“How ghastly!” Mia shrank back, no longer the least excited, repulsed
at the thought of anti-personnel weapons. Greenie women would not
touch a killing machine, nor be with a male who did — ^the main reason
why Derek carried nothing more deadly than a sleep grenade. Despite
her three degrees, Mia could not comprehend why humans invented
weapons to begin with, accepting it as some unexplainable original sin of
her creators. She asked, “Are all hmnan females so ferocious?”

“She didn’t seem ferocious.” Maybe Tammy was though; maybe, to Mia,
aU tme humans were unspeakably savage. “She was guarding the bunker
door, the first place they blasted. If I hadn’t talked her out, she would be
dead now.”

Mia nodded gravely, “And she put down her assault cemnon?”

Derek nodd^. “That was part of the deal.” Prisoners were not allowed
personal artillery.

Glad to hear the gun was gone, Mia snuggled back up against him, say-
ing, “You are such a good man.”

“Why so?” Mia’s total rejection of violence always made Derek feel like

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a terrible beast, knowing that she would rather die than harm another
thinking being, leaving her defenseless against people like Pender who
wanted all Greenies killed, sight unseen. Would knowing Mia have
changed Pender's mind? Probably not.

Mia looped light green arms around his neck, her gold hair falling half
across her smiling face. “You risk your life for others. You bring me pre-
sents, and you are so thoughtful.”

Too thoughtful at times. Soon Mia was going dirtside to live an ecolo-
gist’s dream, creating a balanced planetary ecosystem teeming with
plants and animals. By then, Derek’s work diitside would be done, and he
would go back to being a vacuum hand. So was he merely a pleasant in-
terlude to Mia, before the serious business of life began? A sort of in-
depth xenobiology experiment? Or maybe just a pet she could fuck? Gree-
nie women could control conception, and she was choosing not to breed by
him. He cocked an eyebrow, asking, “As good as a Greenie?”

“No,” Mia laughed at the thought, “you are not like a Greenie in the
least.” Undoing his tunic, she played with his chest hairs, saying, “And I
like that. I like that a lot.” Leaning down, she licked the sweat off his
chest with her small green tongue. Mia especially liked the taste of him,
saying he was wild and salty, while Greenie sweat was designed to be
bland and inoffensive. “I really love that you are human.”

“Do you?” Derek stripped the fabric off her slim hght-green torso, press-
ing Mia’s warm body against his bare chest, knowing that this smart,
dedicated mammalian ecologist would do pretty much whatever he want-
ed — so long as it was physiologically possible. She enthusiastically ex-
plored his favorite quirks and fantasies. Being a devoted mammalogist,
Mia veistly enjoyed making love to the most fearsome manunal in the
known universe, thrilling to the feel of his savage power inside her. What
true scientist could resist being so intimate with her subject? He whis-
pered, “Do you like making love to a dangerous beast?” The most danger-
ous beast. “Is that it?”

“A Httle,” Mia laughed, clearly liking how he manhandled her. Even at
half his weight, her calm sure confidence came off like a challenge, beg-
ging him to puncture her smug Greenie superiority.

Taking finn hold of her buttock, Derek suggest^, “Perhaps you would
prefer a SuperCat?”

“Ugh, too hairy,” Mia protested, “and those horrid teeth! They are real
beasts, who do not know good fi:nm evil. You know good and evil, yet you
choose good. That dehghts me.”

Derek too. He kissed her soft acquiescent mouth, at the same time shd-
ing out of his trousers. When he released her tongue, Mia whispered,
“What is her name?”

“Who?” He kicked his pants onto the tatami deck.

Mia wiggled atop him, her groin grinding rhythmically against his. “This
Earthwoman, fi'om Portland.”

He never knew what Greenies would say next. “Her name is Tammy.”

Mia grinned, so excited by his seeing an Earthwoman she had to drag
Tammy into bed with them, metaphorically at least. “Did you make love
toTanuny?”

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February 2005

“No time ” Derek could barely believe they were discussing this. Tam-
my had been hard put to even talk to him; at best, he hoped to hire her to
help with his job.

“You will.” Mia dismissed his protest; after all, he was only human, and
a man at that. Parting her thighs, she sank down onto him, drawing him
deep into her. Maybe Greenies were the same vmder the skin. Mia’s head
might be wired wildly different, and her skin might timi sunlight into
blood sugar, but, on the inside, she felt just like a woman. Or so Derek
supposed — never having done this with a human femede.

Portland Woman

Eireenies needed no death penalty, since they never killed each other,
and genocide was such a preposterous concept they had no laws against
it. So the trial took place on the surface, on a lowland LZ, imder military
law, with Leo for a judge. The defendants were the last to leave Pender’s
bunker, the trio in flight suits and Tammy, who turned out to be on Pen-
der’s staff, an operations assistant doubling as a door-gunner. All were
charged with murdering more than ten thousand Gekko civilians in a nu-
clear strike near the end of the fighting. The older man had piloted the
strike craft, and his two teenage sons had served as weapons officer and
crew chief. Tammy’s office had given the order.

Liking to work outdoors, Leo held the trial in a deep green valley
floored by stands of elephant grass and tall tree ferns — a hint of what
Harmonia would be like when terraforming was complete. Brightly col-
ored birds called fi:um atop the tree ferns. Derek refus^ to sit on the juiy,
so it was made up of SuperChimps, SuperCats, and Greenie males — since
no female could vote for death. Learning that Derek would not serve on
the jury, Leo asked, “WiU you be defense attorney then?”

Derek shook his head. “That would be racist.” Why have him do it, just
because he was human? Derek had no training as a lawyer, and no par-
ticular sympathy for Pender’s people. Nor for Gekkos, so far as that goes.
Let some earnest yoimg Greenie tay to get them off.

Tammy immediately volunteered, stepping up and saying to the Su-
perCat, “I will defend myself and the others — if they want me.”

Prosecutors objected, claiming, “It creates conflict of interests for the
defense attorney to be a co-defendant.” The prosecutors were Gekkos. Not
real ones, who could not tolerate the humid oxygen-rich atmosphere of
the lowlands; instead, they appeared as holograms beamed down finm or-
bit — grim humanoid bio-constructs, stretched-out versions of Greenies
with homy skin, big bald heads, and barrel chests; hred for dry, low-g,
low-oxygen worlds, like Harmonia was before real humans arrived. The
Gekkos suggested, “Have the unindicted human do it.”

They meant Derek, who had already refused. Leo turned to look Tam-
my over, lazily eyeing the Earthwoman in her worn militia \miform. Dis-
armed, defeated, but not the least downcast, Tammy looked cahnly back
at the SuperCat, not afi-aid to defend herself, against him, or anyone. Leo

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liked what he saw, saying, “Charges against you are dismissed without
prejudice. Prosecutors may try to revive them before another judge — ^but
not me. Until then, do your best. Since this is your first case, Fm sure the
prosecution will agree to give you leeway. ...” He glanced at the Gekkos.

“Dismissed?” Speed-of-light lag made the hologram prosecutors seem
slow and insensitive, as well as insubstantial. “This human is a danger-
ous war criminal, responsible for the deaths of thousands of sentient be-
ings ”

“So you say.” Leo yawned, showing off gleaming canines. “But this hu-
man was not aboard the strike craft, and not in the chain-of-command,
since Pender gave the laimch order himself. . . .”

“And he never held a staff vote,” Derek volunteered, though he only had
Pender’s word on that.

“These are all points to be proven,” the Gekkos insisted, outraged at
any attempt to shortcut justice. When Derek’s comments arrived, the
Gekkos added, “Who is he to talk?”

“You just tried to make him defense attorney,” Leo pointed out. Giving
another toothy yawn, the SuperCat told his court, “Case against the de-
fense attorney is dismissed. Intercepts show Pender gave the laimch or-
der, and the strike craft carried it out. This court has neither the time nor
patience to prove things everyone knows — stick to points in dispute.”

The Gekkos objected again, but Leo overruled them, then turned back
to Tammy, smiling broadly, telling her, “No Greenie is going to sentence a
defenseless female to death anyway. So do your damnedest, and if you
screw up, the court will underst^d, being amateurs ourselves.”

Tammy thanked him and went to consult with her former co-conspira-
tors. When she was done, Leo let the holes lead off, describing the strike
in some detail, time, location, and numbers killed — stressing that most of
the dead were infants and females. Then the chief prosecutor went fi*om
defendant to defendant, asking each one what he had done. The pilot
tried to take all the responsibility himself, knowing he was dead, but hop-
ing to save his sons, declaring adamantly, “I alone got the orders, and I
alone carried out the strike.”

Nobody much beheved the desperate father, but the hologram Gekko
happily pocketed the abject confession, then turned to the weapons offi-
cer, asking about the strike craft’s armament, getting a complete descrip-
tion of the Artemis air-to-surface missile, and its antimatter warhead.
Then the Gekko asked, “Did you know there were non-combatants within
the kill radius?”

Nodding, the teenager admitted that he did, and that he armed and
aimed the missile anyway, adding rather lamely, “We were told they were
not people.”

“By who?” demanded the indignant Gekko.

Shrugging, the boy carefully avoided looking at his anguished father.
“Everyone.”

Grimacing, the Gekko went on to get similar answers fi*om the yoimg
crew chief, concluding his case. Which made it Tamm/s turn. Picking the
pilot to start with, she asked about the general military situation, show-
ing that the human settlers were outnumbered more tiian a himdred to

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February 2005

one, and losing badly. “Gekkos had us surroimded and pinned down, suf-
fering steady casualties. Gekkos moved easily over the smface, while we
huddled in our bunkers, or went about in vehicles, making ourselves
ready targets ”

Prosecutors objected, arguing that mihtary considerations had nothing
to do with the mvirder of non-combatants. Leo casually overruled them;
at best, the SuperCat considered the trial a tedious evasion of responsi-
bility, but he meant for everyone to have their say. “Go on,” he instructed
Tammy, “though I doubt this line of testimony will do you any good.”

Thanking Leo, Tammy got the pilot to describe the mihtary installa-
tions in the target city, showing that the Gekko guerrilla bands bleeding
the settler militia were based among non-combatants. But the Gekko
prosecutor responded by asking if the strike craft carried smart-mxmi-
tions, which the weapons officer admitted it did. “Then why did you not
use them?” asked the Gekko. “Confining the strike to mihtaiy targets.”

“Pender ordered us to use the Artemis,” repHed the pilot. Clearly, Pen-
der had wanted a high body count — which was now likely to cost the
strike team their fives. Summing up the prosecution’s case, the hologram
Gekko pointed out that the dead included himdreds of hiimans as well,
internees and POWs, held under humane conditions. Unlike Pender’s
people, the Gekkos had taken prisoners and treated them reasonably
well, imtil other hmnans obliterated both them and the Gekkos.

Tammy finished up with a passionate plea for mercy, claiming that the
killing could stop here, if they were willing to take a risk for peace. Pen-
der was dead, and his cause was dead. Harmonia was going to the Gree-
nies — punishing the defeated would not make a difference. Derek’s heart
went out to her, facing an Alice in Wonderland jiuy of brainy apes, toothy
felines, and green-skinned men. He could tell Tanuny had seen her fill of
fighting; two fight centuries fi'om home, and one of only two humans on
Harmonia who were not either imder capital indictment or cowering in
caves and bunkers, waiting for Greenies and SuperCats to dig them out.
Her plea for peace and forgiveness reminded Derek of Mia. His Greenie
girlfriend had said the same exact things when they first got together,
wishing to personally plead with Pender for a cease-fire — not knowing
that the Humanists would have shot her out of hand. For some people,
humanity was just skin-deep. Despite Tammy’s Portland-white skin and
militia uniform — complete with an empty holster strapped to her thigh —
there was more similarity between her and Mia than the Humanists, or
even a lot of Greenies, would admit. Defeat had wrung all the settler arro-
gance out of Tammy, making her sound like little blonde-green Mia;
smart, open, honest, and utterly helpless in the face of force.

Tammy must have moved the Greenies on the jury too, because they ac-
quitted tile teenage crew chief— refusing to put to death someone who had
merely been along for the ride. His father and brother were not so lucky.
Everyone waited glumly while the verdict was virtually appealed to an off-
planet court — in this case the officers of the armed merchant cruiser
Eclipse, sitting in a special courts martial. Not even the Gekkos were hap-
py, having seen Tammy and the crew chief get off— and not trusting the
naval officers, most of whom were human.

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Verdicts came back confirmed, much to the Gekkos’ surprise. Derek ex-
pected it, knowing naval officers had scant sympathy for the Hiunanist
militia — ^bimgling amateurs who gave war a bad name. Gekkos made the
common mistake of assuming that all humans were the same.

Judge Leo carried the sentences out personally. Life and death were all
that mattered to a SuperCat, and he would never have sat in judgment if
someone else was going to execute the sentence. What would be the
point? He asked the father how he wanted it done. Lips drawn, the hu-
man replied that he wanted his son to die first, “But I don’t want to see
it.”

Leo imderstood, telling him, “Say your good-byes.” Which the dad did,
first to the crew chief, then to the son who would die. Then the father
watched his son obey his final order, marching off without a misstep, dis-
appearing behind a screen of tree ferns, where Leo shot him.

When Leo came for the father, the hmnan said a final good-bye to the
Gekkos. “I’m glad we killed every one of you assholes.”

Watching the father go, Derek knew how the man felt. Ceremoniously
shooting them for destroying a smallish city did seem ludicrous, since hu-
mans had gone on to kill every Gekko on the planet. Vastly outnumbered,
and clinging to a few dwindling isolated settlements, Pender’s people
knew that even antimatter warheads would not win for them — so the
Hiimanists countered with their ultimate weapon. When the settlers first
arrived after two centuries in transit and foimd Harmonia inhabited by
Gekkos, plans for terraforming the planet were put on hold. Facing com-
plete defeat, Pender ordered the terraforming into immediate operation.
Deep-space teams at the edge of Ares system crashed water ice comets
rich in CO2 into Harmonia, producing surface water, rain, and green-
house gases. At the same time, Pender’s biotechs released superplants
into the thicker wetter atmosphere, sending oxygen levels soaring.
Mounting oxygen and hvunidity killed all the Gekkos that didn’t flee off-
planet. Homo sapiens had again come out on top, against daimting odds,
and on alien ground. Proving that hiunans were a dangerous species to
tangle with — for those few that did not already know.

Tammy took away the surviving teenager, acquitted of all charges, but
still rendered a homeless orphan by the courts. Derek let her go without a
word, guessing that this was not the moment to offer her a job working
for the new masters of Harmonia.

He caught up with Tammy in orbit, where settler families waited to be
shipped outsystem. Trust Greenies to design the perfect trsmsit camp,
turning the main hold of a C-class freighter into a hologram tropical isle,
complete with warm simlight, sea breezes, and righteous waves. Folks
hved in thatched treehouses and palm huts, while a dropshaft in the is-
land’s center led to more standard decks — ^for those who tired of paradise.
Tammy sat on the beach staring out to sea, having traded her mili tia uni-
form for a gaudy sarong and a hibiscus blossom tucked behind her ear.
Other refugees lounged about in various states of imdress, and children
splashed in the surf beneath a bright hologram sky — ^including Brad, who
Tammy turned out to be watching. Someone upwind was roasting a pig,
while teenagers lovingly smoothed and sanded balsawood surfboards.

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Sitting down in the hot sand beside Tammy, he watched a blue breaker
slam into the beach, sending ghttering spray flying through warm tropi-
cal air. Out of the comer of his eye, he noted Tammy had nicely roimded
breasts, even if they weren’t green. “Is this what Portland is hke?”

Laughing, Tammy looked over at him, the first time he had coaxed
more than a smile out of her. “No, this is not Portland. Not even close.”

“Really?” The Charter of Universal Rights said that internees must be
kept in conditions “approximating” their home world — and Greenies
scrupulously obeyed such conventions, not wanting to deny anyone their
rights. “Earth is not like this?”

“Parts of it are.” Tammy’s smile faded, and she stared evenly at him, an
intense questioning look that surprised Derek — it seemed like Tammy
needed something from him, but would not say what. Which Derek fovmd
strange. Greenie females were very upfront about their needs; if they
wanted something they said so. All Tammy said was, “What are you do-
ing here?”

Good question. Derek was not sure what he was doing, but he did want
to see more of Tammy, so he tried to start on a positive note. “You were
amazing, standing up to the court like you did, saving that bo/s life ”

“But not his father and brother.” Tammy sounded bitter, looking back
at Brad, another orphan. By utterly wiping out the Gekkos, Pender and
company had assured that the blame would forever fall on Tammy’s peo-
ple.

“You did wonderfully.” Derek meant it; he had talked to Tammy on a
whim, but everything she did since drew him in. Her plea for peace, her
caring for homeless kids, her bravery before armed SuperCats. “Leo
would have killed that boy, as easily as the others. You saved him, when I
w£is afraid to even try.”

“You, afraid?” Tammy’s smile retmned, as if she could not really beheve
him. “I thought you were the nerveless negotiator who walked imarmed
into the muzzles of machine cannon.”

“Only in my spare time,” Derek explained. “Normally I’m a vacuum
hand, a pilot. Greenies grabbed me for this job because I was the only hu-
man they could easily get a hold of”

“Yet you took the job,” Tammy reminded him, “idiotically going into
grave danger just to save complete strangers.”

And winning points with Tammy. Derek could tell by how her smile
widened, making this the moment to ask. “Idiotically? I hope not, because
I fancied you might join me.”

“Join you?” Taken aback, Tammy acted like she had started to trust
him, but now wsis not sure. “Working for Greenies?”

“Photo sapiens do pay me,” Derek admitted, “but that’s not why I do it.”
He nodded toward Brad, splashing in the surf with the other children.
“That’s who I do it for — there are still a lot of innocents dirtside, and a
woman would be very helpful in getting them out safely, especially an
Earthwoman.”

Tammy looked at him with that same questioning stare, like she want-
ed something from him — ^but all she said was, “Do you know how hard it
is to lose everything? To see good friends blown to bits for no reason?”

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Looking out to sea, Tammy watched hydraulically produced waves roll
out of the hologram horizon that hid her prison wall. “This all started out
as a grand adventm*e, foimding a new world beyond the stars — but when
we got here someone else had moved in, and no one would honor our
claim.” Gekkos had gotten in ahead of the hmnan colonists, and there was
no law to make them leave. Human attempts to assert their centuries-old
claim had led to friction, then fighting, and finally genocide. “Sinre it’s all
oiu* fault, but what could we do? Our ships were one-way jobs, built to be
cannibalized at om- destination, so we couldn’t even go home. Those of us
who opposed fighting were dragged in anyway, once the killing began. I
started by organizing peace vigils, and ended up as a door-gunner — don’t
think that was easy.”

Hunched up, her arms around her legs, she laid her head down on her
bare knees, looking back over at him, saying, “Now we’re defeated, de-
spised, and deported, and it will all go to the Greenies.” Surviving Gekkos
had sold their now useless claim on Harmonia to the Greenies, and there
was scant support for letting the human settlers keep a planet they had
acquired by mass-murder. “Greenies are going to just waltz in and take
what we made, because they are so good and we are so evil.”

Derek agreed, Greenie goodness could get to you — ^witness this island-
paradise-cum-prison. Greenies were adept at making you feel grateful for
doing what they wanted. “I don’t think you are evil,” he told Tammy, “only
human. That’s why I offered you the job — ^this is something that must be
done by humans. If Greenies could do it, we woiildn’t be having this talk.”

Still staring straight at him, Tammy told him tersely, “I can’t betray my
people.”

“Fm asking you to help save them,” Derek pointed out.

Again he got that questioning look. By now, Mia would have said what
she wanted — and then some. Tammy just said, “Fll work for you, but not
for Greenies. The first time I have to take orders from a Greenie — I’m
gone.”

“Absolutely,” Derek agreed. He could talk to the Greenies, being very
good at that.

“And don’t try to pump me for info,” Tammy warned him. “I wiU talk
people into coming out, but I won’t help kill them. Understood?”

Derek nodded. “Understood.”

Tammy looked hard at him. “No hypno-probes. No brain scans.”

“Fm not even wired for lie detection,” Derek reminded her. He liked the
give-and-take of talking to Tammy, enjoying an edge you never got with
Greenies. With Mia, everything was so pleasantly simple, that were it not
for her green skin and weird way of thinking, there would be no mystery
at all. With Tammy, it was a ch^enge just to get agreement, before she
piled on more bizarre conditions. “We go dirtside at 1630 hom« tomorrow.
Can you be ready?”

“Sure.” It was not as if Tammy had much to do here. Nor did she bother
to ask about the pay — ^when you were being paid to get out of jail, how
much hardly mattered.

Getting up to go, Derek surveyed the white sweep of tropical beach
edged with treehouse cabanas. “So this is not Portland?”

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“More like Paradise Island,” Tammy told him. “Minus the holo-rides,
dance arenas, sex-clubs, and love grottos.”

Earth sounded like an amazing place. He remembered Tammy sajdng
that she had been to Paradise Island with her boyfriend — and liked it a
lot. He asked, “Do you still have the boyfriend?”

“Siu«.” T ammy nonchalantly watch^ his reaction, but by now, Derek
was enough of a negotiator not to show disappointment. “Back in Port-
land,” she added, making them both laugh. Oregon was so far off that
laser-mail took foiu* hundred years to get a reply. He left before she could
ask if he had a girlfriend.

All he told Mia was that he had hired Tammy. His Greenie girlfriend
was pleased, saying her good-bye to him on the temple porch of their bon-
sai garden apartment, with wind chimes tinkling overhead. “Be careful,”
Mia pleaded, “Fm not done with you. And take care of Tammy too.”

“Tammy?” He was surprised by her concern for Pender’s former aide.

“Yes. Tammy will be alone among men and weapons. She will need a
good man to watch over her, and you are the best I know.” Mia gave him
another kiss, then let him go.

Bilhons of years ago, when Ares system was still forming, a Rhode Is-
land-sized rock had slammed into Harmonia’s northern hemisphere,
carving out the Hyperborian Depression, sub-polar lowlands a thousand
klicks across. Ring^ by dry ragged, highlands, the lowlands were slowly
filling with rain water that would one day submerge everything but the
central volcanic peak thrust high up into the thin air. Glass remnants of
Gekko towns shone amid silent green swamps and marshes inhabited by
herds of hippos who were busily converting the greenery into fish food and
fertilizer. Humans had brought all sorts of useful animals with them to
fill out Harmonia’s slowly emerging ecology, though Greenies would now
teiilor the world to their tastes, and Mia would be the one coming down to
catalogue the hippo herds.

But first the swamps must be made safe for Greenies. That was for Leo
and Derek to do, and now Tammy. Riding down on the shuttle, Derek sat
beside his new teammate, excitedly listening to stories from Earth. So
much time, so many wonders. How strange that most of human existence
had been confined to that one tiny planet. He asked Tammy, “Why did you
leave?”

“There are forty billion people in the solar system, most of them on
Earth,” Tanuny explained. “Crowds like that can be lonely. I wanted to
live on a world like Earth was when there were not so many of us.”

And now they were going down to root the last human remnants out of
Harmonia. T amm y sighed, saying, “Weird thing is, I still get laser-mail
from my sister Mary, who must be two hundred years older than me by
now. It was all sent when Mary was in her twenties, birth announce-
ments, Christmas greetings, that sort of thing — ^nothing very personal.
Sometimes I miss Portland, but there isn’t a lot you can do with a doctor-
ate in Humanities, except leave the planet.”

“You have a doctorate in Humanism?” Derek was shocked to discover
they gave degrees in intolerance and racial superiority.

His surprise amused Tammy. “Humanism and the Humanities are to-

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tally different. My specialty was Dead Languages — Latin, Sumerian,
Japanese, that sort of thing.”

Fascinated, Derek asked, “So, do you speak English?”

Tammy smiled. “All my life.”

“Say something in English,” he suggested. Many of the settler holdouts
came firom North America, and Enghsh wovdd be a good way of proving
she was not a Greenie.

Tammy said something short and unintelligible, but her quaint accent
made it sound fetching, even romantic. Derek asked, “What does that mean?”

Her smile tmned mischievous, and Tammy told him, “I asked, do you
have a girlfiriend?”

Suddenly, Tammy’s English sentence didn’t sound so quaint and fetch-
ing. Mia was not due down from orbit for da3rs, so a chance meeting was
unlikely, but Derek could not lie to Tammy, not after her sometimes
painful honesty. Trjdng to hide behind a nonchalant grin, he told her,
“Only if you count Greenies.”

Tammy’s smile faded, and Derek saw that he had lost something in her
eyes by sleeping with a Greenie. “Her name is Mia. But I doubt she con-
siders me her hoyfriend’ — not the way hiunans think of it ”

Tammy would not even look at him, totally uninterested in the love life
of Greenies. They had a cold, silent planetfall, sitting side by side and say-
ing nothing.

Orbital scans showed humans scattered throughout the Hyperborian
Depression, with solid patches in the marsh supporting farm plots, pro-
ducing melons, squash, patdies of com, pigs, and chickens. None of which
worried the Greenies much, since the whole swamp was slowly becoming
a sea bottom. Why dig people out of a place that would soon be imderwa-
ter? What worried the Greenies was a water-tight bunker complex dug
into the base of the central massif, and signs of fortifications farther up.

Leo’s light armored battalion landed near the biggest bimker entrance,
carving out an LZ with wide zones of fire. No one opposed them. In fact,
Derek got the impression that the swarm of armored infantry and turreted
Bug-mobiles sent everyone scurrying for cover. Having said virtually noth-
ing since planetfall, he and Tammy approached the main bunker, a steel
blast-shield dug into a green hillside, with ELVIS SAVES spray-painted in
English above the entrance. His electronic bug scmried ahead of them.

Young women wearing long print dresses, beehive hairdos, and black
eye shadow greeted them at the bunker door, looking askance at Tsumny
in her brown militia uniform, beneath body armor that read, DO NOT
SHOOT THIS WOMAN! Tanuny shook her head and grinned for the first
time since that finsty fall fix)m orbit. “Presleites! Good luck! You’re going
to wish you were dealing with Pender.”

“What do 3rou mean?” Derek asked warily, pleased to have Tammy talk-
ing again.

“You’ll see.” Tammy shook her head. “Church of Elvis, so just watch
your back.”

Smiling women ushered them into the neatly carpeted bunker, showing
a cold shoulder to Tammy. Inside was a hologram-maze of long fluorescent
corridors lined with numbered rooms, all done in the same white-and-gold

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motii^ with heavy white drapes where the windows should be. Lower levels
were reached by boxy elevators. Unable to tell if this was some illusionary
defense, Derek asked Tammy, “Is this typical Earth-style architectxire?”

“From a zillion years ago,” Tammy told him. “This is programmed to re-
semble a Las Vegas hotel casino in early post-atomic Nevada. Before the
state was made into a waste dump.”

“Really?” That explained the numbered rooms, but not the annoying
music in the elevators. “What was Las Vegas?”

“Resort in the desert — don’t ask me why. Presleites adore this style of
architecture, which has a sort of energetic charm,” Tammy admitted. “Liv-
ing like this would drive normal folks crazy, but it doesn’t seem to bother
them much.”

Led into an inner bedroom with the same white-on-white motif, Derek
was confronted by a middle-aged matriarch wearing a blue sheath dress
beneath a black bouffant hairdo. Studying them from imder her heavy
eye shadow, the woman introduced herself as Ginger, asking suspiciously,
“Which side are you on?”

“Neither,” Derek annoimced hopefully.

Women aroimd him smiled wide, and voiced a happy, “Hallelujah!”

“Praise the King. We have been waiting for someone to come to then-
senses,” Ginger explained. “When we saw her we were afraid you might
be Humanists.”

“Funny, I thought you would be Hmnanists,” Derek admitted.

“Hell, no! Elvis didn’t believe in race war. His only begotten daughter
married Saint Michael, who bleached his own skin, showing it was no
shame to be any color — even white.”

Women around Derek chimed in with another chorus of, “Praise the
King.”

Derek tinned to Tanuny. “What are they saying?”

Tammy shook her head. “Too hard to explain. But these people gave
Pender no help at all. They are way too wrapped up in their religion to
worry about the Gekkos, or anything else.”

Derek believed it, but the Greenies wanted the whole central massif
evacuated and combed for weapons. Nor did Derek blame them, since or-
bital survejrs indicated a tunnel complex that could hold enough warheads
to blow a hole in the thin atmosphere and scatter radioactive debris all
over the planet. Greenies were comteous, but not crazy.

Of course, the Presleites did not see it that way. “We have done noth-
ing,” Ginger complained. “We can’t just give up om- homes to Greenies.”

“You can’t stop them,” Derek pointed out. Greenies were going to get
what they want^, even if Leo had to dig the humans out of their tunnels.

“Really?” Batting black lashes. Ginger smiled to her companions, who
drew plastic stingers out of their print dresses. Negotiations had taken
an alarming turn for the worse, and Ginger primly informed him, “Hat-
ing war doesn’t make us pushovers.”

Apparently not. Staring into the round black muzzles of the stingers,
Derek was quick to point out that shooting him would do no one any good.

“Shoot you?” Ginger acted like the thought had never entered her head.
“You have earned an audience with the King. These stingers are just to

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show we are serious. Some people think polite tolerance is a sign of weak-
ness.” Ginger nodded at Tanuny, to show who she meant.

Tammy merely shrugged, t^ng no responsibility for Presleite opin-
ions. Just when Derek thought things could not get any stranger, a hole
flickered into being in front of him, a handsome dark-haired yoimg man,
wearing a sparkling white and gold suit, with a wide belt and a huge
golden buckle. He had lively blue eyes and an engaging smile, and his ap-
pearance was greeted by another roimd of, “Praise the King!”

Bowing to his audience, the hologram winked at Ginger as he straight-
ened up, then swung about on his blue suede shoes, saying to Derek,
“Howdy, son. Don’t worry, these gals won’t drill you — ^thej^re just my fan
club. The pistols are only for protection.”

Derek assured the holo that no one need fear him.

The King’s virtual grin widened. “Pleased to hear you come in peace.”

“Peace is my profession,” Derek agreed cheerfiilly.

“So you talk to both sides?” asked the King.

“I tiy.” Derek knew he was speaking to a sophisticated program of some
sort, broadcast from deeper in the bimker — ^but he was willing to talk to
empty bulkheads if it would avert killing.

Turning serious, the King asked, “And do the Greenies say these folks
got to go?”

Derek nodded. “At least until this area can be thoroughly searched for
contraband.” Code intercepts had revealed that Pender had been working
on a doomsday device — fitting his personality perfectly.

“When your search is done, will they be aUowed back?” asked the virtu-
al Elvis.

“If it were up to me, they would be.” Derek could not answer for the
Greenies.

“I bet it would.” The King’s smile broadened. “And in that case, what if I
just gave you this place?”

“Give it to me?” Derek imagined he had misheard the holo.

“If I just gave it to you, the Greenies wouldn’t take it away. Would they?
You’re pretty well in with them?”

“Maybe,” Derek admitted. Greenies ran the planet, yet were bound by
the Charter of Universal Rights to respect claims by other races. In theo-
ry, anyone who did not aid Pender was as good as a Greenie. Whether
that applied to holo-programs modeled on long-dead singers was another
issue, but juries of bioconstructs had notoriously generous notions of
what was “natural.”

“And you would you let these people live here?” Elvis asked, as his fan
club shyly lowered their pistols, smiling to show their dimples.

“Of course, but . . .”

“Then nothing could be simpler,” the King declared. “You seem a decent
man, not overly scared by women or guns.”

“For one thing,” Derek protested, “I don’t want the responsibility.”

“Of com^e not.” Elvis laughed, shaking his dark locks. “What fool wants
responsibility? Sane folks run like heU finm it. But take it from the King,
sometimes you gotta face the music.”

Elvis took them on a virtual tour of the bimker, followed by his fan club.

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February 2005

turning off the hologram Vegas Hilton, to reveal living quarters, hydro-
ponics, recycling, power supply, and families hiding in blast shelters^ut
no big stock of weapons, except for the personal sidearms that most adult
Presleites carried, just to be ^e. “An armed society is a polite society,” the
King explained amiably.

Satisfied that this was all true, Derek put in a call to Leo, arranging a
peaceful evacuation. For which the hologram deity thanked hiTn profuse-
ly, and zip-signaled a contract for Leo to witness, turning the whole cen-
tral massif over to Derek, along with all its contents — ^then, in a blink, the
King disappeared. Elvis had left the bunker.

While Leo’s battalion searched the lower reaches of the mountain,
Derek took Tammy upslope to check out the command complex at the
summit, including an auxiliary reactor, big blast-shelters, and what
looked like a launch silo. For that, they needed oxygen, since the Presleite
timnels did not connect to the complex above, and they would be climb-
ing into a dead zone, where the air was still too thin to support life. I*ret-
ty appropriate, since the coolness between them continued. He had not
heard a kind word from Tammy since he had told her about Mia; which
he might have expected, but still did not enjoy. Accustomed to Greenie
girls, Derek had been lulled into thinking that Tanuny might have a sim-
ilar easy attitude. No such luck.

Derek had to be satisfied by inspecting his new digs, with his bug
crawling ahead of him, searching for signs of trouble. If the Presleites had
not killed any Gekkos to get this mountain, Greenie courts would likely
award it to him. And Derek saw absolutely no sign of Gekkos on the
mountain, which was only slowly becoming habitable as the o^gen level
rose. The nearest glass ruins were shining dots far out across the green
swampland, on what would one day be sea bottom.

His bug saw no sign of life in the complex atop the mountain, which
seemed to be on lock-down mode. Power emissions were minimal, and
most of the tunnels lacked life-support, standing with ports gaping open
atop an almost-airless moimtain stuck up into the fiigid stratosphere. At
the top, Derek called down to Leo, saying he was checking out his high
castle. Leo gave him a go, and Derek sent in his bug ahead of them. Tam-
my closed the ports behind them, turning on the lights and air.

Derek found his new digs impressive, going to the command deck and
getting the 3V tour. It had obviously not been built by the Presleites, but
it was not Gekko work either, and the King’s claim to the mountain went
all the way to the s ummi t. So long as the place was truly abandoned, and
they found nothing to link it to Pender, t^ hi^-tech castle was £is good
as his, to do with as he pleased. Though what he really wanted was a ship
to pilot. Who could he find to swap a starship for a mountain-top retreat?

3V showed the silo to be empty, but Derek decided on a visual check.
Heavy blast-shielding allowed Greenies in orbit to “see” the buried silo, but
not what was inside. Tammy led him to the silo lock, and equalized pres-
sures, flooding the huge shaft with breathable air. He sent his bug in ahead.

As he experted, the silo was not empty — ^that would have made things
too easy. But there was no doomsday device either, thank heaven.
Crouch^ at the bottom of the shaft was a gravity drive starship, a sleek

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fast Fornax Skylark, ready to leap into orbit. Just the sort of ship he
wanted. Way too good to be true.

Signaling Tanuny to step back, Derek decided to alert Leo on a secure
channel. This silo had to be sealed tight and escape into space cut off, be-
fore anyone dared approach that ship. Recalling his bug, he hissed to
Tammy, “Now’s when we call in Leo’s people.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Tammy reph^ evenly. Derek turned in surprise,
and saw that Tammy was holding a gun on him, which dear sweet Mia
would never have done. He could barely beheve it, but a plastic fire-and-
forget stinger had somehow materialized in her hand. Derek opened his
mouth to protest, but before he could get a word out, Tammy shot him.

Thorns Hammer

Uerek awoke in a sealed cubicle aboard ship, wearing a slave collar. His
sleep grenade and hypo-rings were gone. There was absolutely no hght —
but he didn’t need xi-10,000 night vision zoom lenses to know he was in a
sealed box. His comlink had vanished, but he still had the pilot’s naviga-
tion chip embedded in his skull. Inertial sensors showed Derek was ac-
celerating at about 20-gs, something you could only do in a fast starship,
like the Fornax Skylark he had seen hiding in the shaft. Simple logic said
that he was aboard that ship, headed rapidly outsystem. Pity he waited
so late to resort to logic.

Fingering his slave collar, he found it was standard issue, fitted for track-
ing, paralysis, lie detection, emotional motivation, and who knows what
else? There were no ill efiects finm the stinger, so the fire-and-forget hornet
must have been set on SLEEP. Such a stinger could just as easily have
killed him, or put him in a coma. Tammy, it seemed, wanted him alive and
conscious — for the moment, at least. He remembered how she had stared
at him over the sights, not angry, or gleeful, just giving him that same even
look she shown him in Penderis bimker, when she first pulled her head
out of the assault-cannon’s sighting hood. Greenies had warned him that
Earthwomen were dangerous, but it took Tammy to convince him.

He told his nav-chip to work out pm*suit vectors, assuming all available
vessels gave chase as soon as the Skylark burst out of the silo. Results
were not good. Greenies had nothing that could catch it, just a couple of
interstellar yachts converted to escorts that might do 10-gs at a stretch.
Backing up the Greenies was the armed merchant cruiser Eclipse, a
naval vessel with the legs to run down the Skylark — ^but not anytime
soon. Eclipse had been nosing about upsun for signs of slavers or Humanist
hold-outs, while the Sl^lark was going like lightning in the opposite direc-
tion. Even if Eclipse dropped everything to pursue, half of Tartarus sys-
tem lay between them, which would mean a long stem chase into the vast-
ness of interstellar space.

Of coxirse, no one might be chasing them at all. Whoever was running
this ship were bound to be diehard Hiunanists. Greenies and the Navy
might figure that Harmonia system was far better off without such fa-

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natics, and any attempt at pursuit would smack too much of wanting
them back. Leaving Derek an vmwilling passenger on a ship full of lu-
natic pariahs headed who knows where.

Presently, his door dilated and Tammy appeared, a smirk on her face,
casually holding a slave-remote in place of the stinger. “Sony to put you
through this,” she told him, “but it couldn’t be helped.”

“Oh, really?” Derek could easily have avoided ^ this.

“Don’t act so pure,” Tanuny snorted. “All the time you were romancing
me, you were fucking a Greenie.”

“You should try it sometime,” Derek suggested. A good Greenie-fuck
might be just what Tammy needed, to help her loosen up a bit, and maybe
get to know the neighbors.

“Come with me,” she told him, motioning with the remote. “Or I will
have you carried.”

Derek went gladly, eager to get out of the shielded cell and see what was
happening. As soon as he left the cubicle, systems traffic confirmed his
guesses. Greenies had not even bothered to give chase, but Eclipse was
shaping to match orbits deep in interstellar space, with billions of kilome-
ters to make up, leaving Derek pretty much on his own for the moment.
Tammy ushered him into the Skylark’s salon, which was tuned to a view of
tall sandstone spires and vast distances. High overhead was a hologram
Sol, and the cabin deck was made to look like the adobe roof of a pueblo
sweat lodge, covered with bright colored rugs, and sitting atop a lonely mesa.

Three men in brown Humanist militia uniforms sat atop the sweat
lodge in deck chairs molded to their bodies, ignoring the hologrEun vistas
Eunimd them, glaring at Derek instead. They did not look defeated, just
mean. All three of them had recoilless machine pistols at their hips,
which seemed a bit much milhons of kilometers fi’om the nearest threat.
One asked curtly, “What is he doing here?”

Tammy shrugged, saying, “I wanted him to see.”

“Whatever for?” demanded the militia man, dramatically resting his
hand on his holster, though the nearest Greenie was by now millions of
klicks away, and the Gekkos were mostly dead.

“I have hopes for him.” Tammy smiled at Derek as she said it, then
added, “And this far fi*om home, we need all the help we can get,”

“We’ll be bringing in Presleites next,” protested an older man wearing
colonel’s tabs.

Tammy shrugged again, saying, “Pender woiild approve.”

Everyone looked sharply at her, svuprised to see Tammy being so free
with the approval of a dead man, whose opinions had split the system
and all but depopulated a planet. “Boss met him on the last day,” Tammy
explained evenly, “and hked him a lot. Told us not to shoot him.”

Men laughed at that, but it put Pender’s authority behind keeping him
ahve. Tammy added evenly, “Pender ordered me to give up and go with
him, and to recruit him if possible. He was my best hope of getting here.”

All news to Derek, who did not join in the general hilarity at how easi-
ly Tammy had included him in the plans of a mass murderer. Mia had
feared that without him Tammy would be alone among men with gims,
showing just how right a Greenie could be. However, dear sweet Mia ne-

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glected to say what Derek was supposed to do surroiinded by all those
giins, especially with T amm y on the other side.

“But why hsten to me?” Tammy eisked. “You can hear the Boss himself.”

Pointing with the remote, Tanuny triggered a holo, and Pender himself
suddenly appeared, looking fit and relaxed. Grinning, he addressed the
dwindling faithful, saying cheerfully, “Guess I’m dead, otherwise you
wovildn’t be seeing this. Funny, being dead is not near so bad as I imag-
ined. Only drawback is that I can’t see or hear you. That’s why I ordered
up this holo of Monument Valley, so we could all be seeing the same thing.
Ptetty, isn’t she? And some day Harmonia could still look like this ”

Pender stared into the virtual distance, a dead man admiring a fake
landscape, then tinned back to the business at hand. “Well, even in hell
there is still work to do. Code name for this project is Mjollnir ”

Pender’s holo proceeded to rattle off coordinates that Derek’s nav-chip
identified as a location in outer system near tl\e leading Trojan point of
the gas giant Cadmus, a spot intersected by the orbit of an asteroid called
Cassandra. Why Pender should be so concerned to pass on this data was
a mysteiy to Derek — ^but the reasons were bound to be bad.

When he was done, Pender paused to survey the holoscape one last
time, knowing that having delivered his message, he really was dead, no
longer able to affect the world of the hving. In fact, each passing second left
him farther behind. Pender’s smile widened, and he said to no one in par-
ticular, “Well, it was worth it. Now give ’em one more good whack for me.”

In a blink, Pender was gone, and they were all staring into the empty
holoscape of Monument Valley. Surveying the tall spires and painted
desert, Derek wondered if this was someplace on Earth, but did not dare
ask. Everyone else seemed to understand immediately what Pender
meant, and what was going to happen. They asked him only one ominous
question before retviming him to the sealed cubicle. “How long before all
humans are totally off the planet?”

“Not long,” Derek admitted. Human evacuation was his specialty, and
there was small point in lying so long as he was wearing a slave collar.
“Ten days at most, more likely a week. But you can never be sure you
have gotten everyone.”

Militiamen got a grim laugh out of that. Then Tammy took him back to
his sealed cubicle, and he was shut off from the cosmos. Time passed, pre-
cisely recorded by his nav-chip. Food arrived, and a personal recycler in
the comer shipp^ his wastes to hydroponics. Halfway to Cadmus’ lead-
ing Trojan point, the drive fields reversed and the Skylark started decel-
erating. Eclipse woiild have to decelerate as well, in order to match orbits.
Working out high-g trajectories in his head, Derek decided that Eclipse
could cut the distance considerably, but still would not catch up imtil they
were long past the leading Trojan point. Whatever was happening there.
Eclipse could not stop it.

So much for the Navy. If anyone was going to stop the Humanists, it
had to be him. Terrific. He had finally found his own people, only to dis-
cover that they were homicidal limatics. Mia thought that most of hvunan
misery came from inventing weapons, and by now Derek was willing to
agree. No sane Greenie would carry out what looked like a suicidal mis-

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February 2005

sion of mass-destruction at the behest of some dead murderer, Male or fe-
male, yoimg or old, stupid or smart, the first thing a Greenie would ask
was, “Why in the world are we doing this?”

Yet no one on that mesa top questioned anything, except to pointedly
ask when the “humans” would be off the planet. Pender’s people were
probably already offplanet, leaving a sprinkling of peaceful independent
types like the IVesleites, who had somehow managed to avoid the war
and its aftermath — so far. Mia was probably already down there too, tak-
ing samples from the hippos and worrying about what had happened to
him. While these maniacs plotted something fatal for her and every Gree-
nie on the planet. Not to mention all those hippos.

Acceleration fell almost to zero when they reached a spot correspond-
ing to the current location of Cassandra, a two-himdred-klick rock named
for a Trojan princess. Cassandra meant “Entangler of Men.” Or so his
nav-chip said. She had certainly entangled him.

Tammy came to get him, his remote in hand, the stinger in a hip hol-
ster, and a smirk on her face. He tried to lodge a strenuous protest, but
she pressed MUTE, saying, “We don’t have time to argue. Right now we
are in a sealed room, and can’t be overheard. Outside, we have to be ready
to act together. Okay?”

Unable to speak, and not knowing exactly what Tammy meant, Derek
nodded anyway. What choice did he have?

“Good.” Tammy pressed UNMUTE. “So, have you guessed what project
Mjollnir is about?”

“Pender wants you to smash this asteroid into Harmonia, killing as
many Greenies as you can.” Why else rendezvous with a useless rock far
away from anywhere?

“Right.” Tanuny nodded grimly. “Thor’s hammer, smashing om* enemies
to bits.”

“But even if you could anchor this Skylark to the rock, you could never
get past Eclipse.” An armed merchant cruiser carried special landing
teams trained to hberate hijacked ships, and root out slaver bases,

Tammy shook her head. “Tliere is no need to get past Eclipse. Buried in
the rock is a high-g tug, the Atlas, originally used to tow ice comets for
terraforming, but hidden here ever since. Once the tug has been pro-
granuned, the Skylark will take off, drawing the Eclipse into deep space.”

Derek had to admit that it would probably work. Cassandra was a
dense stony-iron asteroid, perfect for hiding the powered-down tug. With
the Skylark speeding away. Eclipse would continue the chase, telling the
Greenies to check out Cassandra. By the time low-g Greenie ships ar-
rived, the asteroid would be accelerating downsim and impossible to stop.
Cassandra striking at high acceleration would almost spht Harmony in
half^ destroying every structure, and blowing a huge hole in the thin at-
mosphere blanketing the world in dust and ash. Only algae would sur-
vive. He bitterly told Tammy, “I believed you, when you told that jmy that
they could stop the killing.”

“I absolutely meant that,” Tammy insisted.

“Then how can you be doing this?” Derek demanded.

“I am trying to stop it,” Tammy protested, looking like she thought it

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should have been obvious. “That’s why I need you. All I have is a Hinnan-
ities PhD, and I know absolutely nothing about piloting a high-g tug.”

“So you want me to?” Derek could hardly beheve what he was hearing.
“Dragging a runaway asteroid behind us ”

“To keep it from hitting Harmonia,” Tammy reminded him. “And maybe
save your Greenie girlfriend.”

Mia was undoubtedly dirtside by now, but that just made it all the
worse. “How could you not tell me?” he demanded. “How could you have
let things get this far?”

“I had to be first to get here,” Tammy told him primly. “Pender sent
back-up messages in case mine didn’t get through. And if Td told you my
plans, you wouldn’t have helped.”

No lie. He stared in exasperation at the Earthwoman, aghast at what
she had done. “Why not just turn them in?”

“And give the Greenies one more victory to gloat over?” Tammy looked
disgusted. “Too many women and kids died from their ‘precision’ bombing
for me to do that. Ttiis is something that humans had to do. If Greenies
could do it, we wouldn’t be having this talk.”

Derek had nothing to say. He would have gladly left all this to Leo’s
light battalion, but maybe he was too used to bioconstructs doing his
dirty work. SuperChimps to do the heavy lifting. Leo for the dangerous
stuff. Bugs to t^e out the toxic waste. Dear sweet Mia to make his meals
and share his bed.

“This is all so easy for you — ^isn’t it?” Tammy asked. “Having the moral
high ground, while we ordinary hmnans do the suffering.”

“Not really,” Derek told her, having seen far more grief and mayhem
than he had ever imagined — none of it of his making, but folks still ex-
pected him to do something about it. “It’s damned hard on me at times.”

“Me too,” Tammy agreed, handing him his sleep grenade, at the same
time giving his hand a warm squeeze. “Back in Pender’s bunker, you were
so anxious to know who I was, and how you could help me. Well, this is
who I am, and now is when I need you.”

Well said. He took the grenade and the squeeze, noting Tammy was wear-
ing his hypo-rings. By now, he knew that there were reasons why negotia-
tors did not consort with the enemy, not if they meant to remain neutral.

Derek followed Tammy out of the cell and into the Skylark’s lounge,
which was no longer atop a desert mesa, showing a seascape instead. The
tug’s crew was coming aboard, looking more like tired mariners emerging
from the sea than vacuum hands coming out of hiding. Two large armed
men in militia imiforms waited by the lock to escort them onto the tug.
Feeling their gaze on him, Derek realized that Tanuny had them perfect-
ly fooled. They were all set to leap to her aid, while she walked stinger on
hip into the tug, planning to betray them. Having been there himself,
Derek could sympathize with their upcoming surprise.

Inside the lock, the ocean motif was replaced by the standard ship’s air-
lock. As soon as the lock closed, and started to cycle, Tanuny opened an
emergency kit on the wall and took out two oxygen masks, putting one on
and handing Derek the other. He put on the mask and set off his sleep
grenade. One shocked militiaman reached out to stop him, but Tammy

Oxygen Rising

133

February 2005

seized his wrist, triggering her hypo-ring. He joined his sleeping compan-
ion on the deck.

When the lock opened, the two of them stepped into the deserted tug.
Decoupling the lock manually, Derek dashed to the command couch.
Without bothering to buckle himself in, he slammed the drive into fiill ac-
celeration, shooting simward, and, at the same time, rotating the whole
rock to port. Fields could not fuQy compensate, and Derek had to cling to
the couch with one hand, while snagging Tammy with the other, keeping
her from tumbling into the controls.

Hanging onto Tammy, he stopped the roll at 180 degrees, so that the
mass of the asteroid was between them and the Skylark as they dropped
toward the inner s)^tem. Fields stabilized, returning cabin gravity to 1-g,
and Tammy landed in his lap.

He looked down at her, and she looked up at him. Suddenly they were
safe, and alone. No armed Hmnanist militia. No Leo and his light battal-
ion. Just the two of them, safe, secure, and together, with two hundred
klicks of rock and iron between them and the men Tammy had so neatly
betrayed. Tammy sat up in his lap and kissed him, a long lingering kiss
that showed that she had been waiting for it almost as long as he had. Her
mouth felt cool and exciting, not as delicate as Mia’s, or as eager to please,
but with a wild williulness that Derek had never tasted before. Their lips
parted, and Tammy smiled, asking him, “Was that as good as a Greenie?”

“You are nothing like a Greenie,” he told her. No Greenie girl had ever
put him through half of what Tammy had done to him — ^but then, no one
had ever suggested that Earth women were easy. Especially Hiunanities
majors from the wilds of Portland, or Eugene. But that just made him
want her all the more — too bad that frantic calls were coming from
Eclipse, wanting to know why one of the leading Trojans had broken lose,
and was accelerating rapidly downsim. Speed-of-light lag meant that the
Greenies did not even know anything had happened — ^yet.

“Don’t answer that,” Tammy told him, shutting off the comlink.

He reached out to call Eclipse, to explain the situation and send them
after the Skylark, which was headed outsystem at high acceleration. But
Tammy stabbed a button on the remote, and his arms went limp, nerve-
blocked by his slave collar. Tammy shook her head, saying, “Told you not
to answer. Let them stew a bit, we need time to ourselves.”

When he started to protest, Tammy pushed MUTE and kissed him
again. His anger at being helpless was mollified by what she did with her
tongue. Then she pushed UNMUTE, and asked, “Was that not better
than talking to the Navy?”

It was, but Derek resented the lack of mobility, demanding, “Turn my
arms back on.”

Tammy sat up in his lap, smiling gleefully. “Only if you promise to be bad.”

Greenie girls did not treat you like this, and, for the first time in his
life, he truly wanted to lay hands on a woman, and none too gently either.
“Come on, turn me on.”

“Whatever you say.” T amm y pressed a button, and one body part leaped
alert. Squirming suggestively, she grovmd her rear into his lap, asking,
“There, how about that?”

134

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Still not what he wanted. Derek pleaded, “Let me use my hands and legs.”

Tammy looked serenely at him, stripping off her hypo-rings. “Only if
you promise to quit acting like a Greenie.”

“Damn you.” Derek could not believe what this woman had put him
through.

“That’s better.” Tammy turned the rest of him on. Until Eclipse
matched orbits, they were utterly alone, two hundred light-years from
Earth; a splendid place for getting acquainted. Derek discovered that de-
spite all her strange actions and dangerous ways, Tammy was indeed just
lie a Greenie girl on the inside.

Eclipse brought the idyll to an end. Naval officers, some of them hu-
man, came to take over the tug and send Cassandra sailing outsystem,
where the wayward Trojan would no longer be a threat. Then they re-
turned Derek to Harmonia, where he and Tammy got a royal reception
from grateful Greenies, who could not do enough to show how thankful
they were. Making it the perfect moment to press his claim to the
Presleite property, and to get a promise that the Presleites could return
to it, along with anyone not actually convicted of war crimes. Which the
Greenies readily agreed to, being eternally optimistic about humans’ abil-
ity to better themselves.

Derek was there when the first shuttle landed, standing in the rain on
a low plateau in the central massif overlooking the green Hyperborean
swamps. Women in black bouffant hairdos, and men with sideburns,
shades, and white dinner jackets trooped out of the shuttle — all armed,
just in case. With them came their children, as well as Brad and the oth-
er orphans from among Pender’s people, like the teenage crew chief that
Tammy had gotten acquitted. And any adults who were willing to live
among Greenies and Presleites.

Inunensely happy with how things were going, Derek stood at the base
of “his” mountain, surveying the sweep of changing landscape from the
bare mountain peak above to the emerald swamp lapping at the lower
slopes. Someday that swamp would be a blue sea, and the mountain
flanks would be lowland jungle, blending into highland forest, then alpine
pasture. Air would become breathable all the way to the top, so the whole
moimtain and the surrounding highland rim would be habitable. Only
the crater floor, where Gekkos had built their cities, would be lost to the
sea. That part of Pender’s plan had worked admirably. His deluge would
go on for decades, and the Gekkos would never get a second chance.

Derek saw a lone slim Greenie, wearing nothing but a gold sarong and
a grin, walking nonchalantly up from where the hippo herds were graz-
ing. Zoom lenses showed Derek that it was Mia coming cheerfully up to
congratulate him. She stopped right before him, and rose on her green
toes, kissing him warmly. “I knew you would do right,” she told him, “and
keep Tammy safe.”

“Not ever^hing went totally as expected,” Derek admitted ruefully. Do-
ing right nearly came out all wrong.

“Don’t worry.” Mia kissed him again. “I told you I wasn’t done with you.
And I dearly want to meet TEunmy too.”

Why did Derek think his troubles had just begun? O

Oxygen Rising

135

BOOHS

Peter Heck

CAMOUFLAGE
by Joe Haldeman
Ace, $23.95 (he)

ISBN: 0-441-01161-6

H aldeman gives us a near-future
version of one of the classic SF
themes: the ahen shape-shifter
in our midst. He begins with a
clear accoimt of the alien’s origin on
a world subjected to such extremes
of environment that it becomes in-
credibly tough, for all practical pm-
poses impossible to kill. An accom-
plished shapeshifter, it arrives on
Earth in the prehuman past, taking
on the form of aquatic top predators
to survive. When it finally comes
ashore, in the early 1930s, it has no
notion of what it means to be hu-
man.

The creature’s first act is to kill,
then to assume the shape of, a
yoimg man it meets on a beach in
southern California. At this point,
it can learn only by imitating the
humans around it, a pattern that
leads to its being diagnosed as an
amnesiac. Its victim’s parents are
rich enough to afford the best care,
including a live-in nurse. Under
that regime, it quickly absorbs large
chunks of human ciilture and lan-
guage, from music to sex (into
which the nurse initiates it). But it
is still not human, as it quickly
proves when it rapes and badly in-
jures another woman brought in to
teach it art. Sent to an insane asy-
lum, it begins to learn the hard way
some of the constraints on behavior
in human society. Released finm the
asylum, it goes to college, then joins

the Marines — just in time for the
opening shots of World War II.

Parallel with this story line,
Haldeman spins one set in our
near future, in which a team of un-
derwater recovery specialists is
commissioned to bring up a myste-
rious artifact — one the reader soon
knows is the spaceship in which
the shapeshifter arrived on Earth.
Recovered and brought ashore in
Samoa, the artifact displays m3rste-
rious properties — its weight is off
the scale for any known material,
and it cannot be marked by any
tool available. Intrigued, the scien-
tists continue to investigate with
the help of a NASA team, which
quietly places a nuclear device
near the spaceship. 'The device can
be exploded if the government de-
cides the artifact is a danger.

The two plots gradually come to-
gether, as the shapeshifter ac-
quires enough human culture and
knowledge to achieve a fair degree
of success, masquerading as a uni-
versity professor in oceanography,
a discipline for which its past in-
carnations as a sea creature obvi-
ously have prepared it. By now,
Haldeman has also dropped in sev-
eral references to another shape-
shifter, one that has spent several
millennia in human form — as often
as not, as a warrior. And, almost in-
evitably, both become aware of the
artifact on Samoa at about the
same time.

Haldeman orchestrates the two
plots into a cat and mouse game
with one of the main players care-

136

Asimov's

fully disguised right up to the end.
(And he makes excellent use of the
fact that, once the main premise be-
comes clear, just about every time
somebody new comes onstage, read-
ers \rill start wondering whether
they are who they appear to be.) In
the process, he gives readers dose-up
lool^ at Samoa, the Bataan Death
March, and several other places and
events that stretch the reader’s
awareness of the world outside com-
fortable everyday experience.

A well-paced and enjoyable per-
formance by one of the most consis-
tently inventive writers in the
field.

BROKEN ANGELS
by Richard K. Morgan
Del Rey, $14.95 (tp)

ISBN; 0-346-46771.4

Like Altered Carbon, to which it
is a sequel, Morgan’s second novel
is essentially a far-future cross be-
tween space opera and military SF.

Takeshi Kovacs is a former U.N.
envoy, now working as a merce-
nary for a planetary government
trjdng to fight off a revolution. In
tlids future, soldiers can be killed —
but it is a relatively easy job to re-
trieve their personahties (and skill
sets) to be incorporated into a new
body — “resleeved,” they call it.
Only the complete destruction of
the stack — a sort of internal black
box affixed near the brain stem —
can kill someone permanently.
Those with particularly valuable
talents and toowledge are likely to
be resleeved almost indefinitely —
at least, until they bum out from
overuse.

When we pick up Kovacs, he is re-
covering firom injmies, and not par-
ticularly looking forward to getting
back into action. That’s the point at
which a stranger, Jan Schneider,

contacts him with what looks like a
lucrative offer. Archaeologists ap-
pear to have discovered a Martian
spaceship — a remnant of a van-
ished race far more advanced than
oiu^. The first of its kind ever foimd,
it is incredibly valuable, and it could
well be Kovacs’s ticket out of the
war zone. Because every corporate
shark on the planet is going to go af-
ter the spaceship, Schneider wants
to enlist Kovacs’s military and n^o-
tiating skills to give himself a
chance to recover it — and live long
enough to realize his profit.

That sets off a complex plot, in
which Kovacs kidnaps the archaeol-
ogist fi’om a prisoner-of-war camp,
recmits a team of mercenaries to
carry out the recovery of the space-
ship, and cuts a deal with a corpo-
rate sponsor. Big business on Sanc-
tion IV is, to put it mildly, predatory,
Kovacs has to off several body-
guards just in the precess of getting
his sponsor interested. No big deal;
they can all be resleeved, if their
skills justify it. But it quickly be-
comes clear that somebody is very
interested in seeing that Kovacs
and his partners don’t get to the
Martian ship.

But Kovacs has been hired to do
a job, and he’s going to do it, even
tirough he’s AWOL fiem the meree-
nary company he’s imder contract
to. It’s just as well that he and his
crew are effectively immortal, be-
cause there’s a lethal level of fall-
out all around the archaeological
site. On top of that, someone has
seeded the nearby area with mili-
taiy nanobots — a new kind that
adapt to whatever defenses they’re
exposed to, and keep coming until
they win. In a sense, that absolute
refusal to be stopped makes them
an echo of Kovacs himself

Gritty space opera, with some in-

On Books

137

February 2005

teresting twists on the theme of
limited immortality.

PRISONER OF THE
IRON TOWER
by Sarah Ash
Bantam, $23.00 (he)

ISBN: 0-553-3821 1-X

This second book of Ash’s fantasy
trilogy, “The Tears of Artamon,” is
set in a society based on Russian
history and folklore.

In the opening book, Gavril, a
young artist, discovered that he
was hereditary ruler of Azhkendar.
Following his apparent destiny, he
repelled the invading forces of
Prince Eugene of Tielen, saving his
country. But the price of victory was
allowing himself to be possess^ by
the dragon-demon Drakhaoul,
whose thirst for human blood made
Gavril a tortured monster. By the
end of the first book he had thrown
off the dragon.

As this second book begins.
Prince Eugene sends a new invad-
ing force to Azhkendar. Powerless
to resist, Gavril is captured and
sent to the Iron Tower, a prison for
the criminally insane. Eugene be-
lieves himself to be an enlightened
prince, bringing the benefits of civi-
lization to the entire Rossiyan peo-
ple, whom he intends to unite im-
der his power. To that end he has
brought together the five pieces of a
giant ruby taken from the eye of a
sculptured dragon that guards the
gate through which the Drakhaoul
entered their world, the magical
symbol of the nation’s unity.

Left behind after Gavril’s capture
are his faithful retainers, now en-
slaved by the Tielen. Also stranded
in the aftermath are the spirit-
singer Kiukiu, who has fallen in
love with (javril, and Gavril’s moth-
er Elysia, a brilhant painter. Both

quickly learn that in the absence of
(iavril, their place in the kingdom is
close to the bottom; and those who
have displaced them are eager to
keep things that way. Both realize
that their only chance is to leave;
Kiukiu to the Teilen capital, in
search of Gavril, Elysia to her home
in Smarna, a southern province.

Meanwhile, Eugene’s rise to
power has led him to take as bride
Princess Astasia of the deposed
Orlov dynasty, who finds herself
unable to love her royal husband.
Eugene essentially ignores her, in
any case; his attention is focused
on his attempts to unite the Rossi-
yan empire, to deal with a rebellion
in Smama, and to wrest the secret
of Gavril’s power, which had left
the prince seriously wounded in
the fir^ assault on Askhendar. And
to add one more complication, Eu-
gene’s court necromancer has been
undertaking dangerous experi-
ments in an attempt to accumulate
power of his own.

The return of the demon-dragon
Drakhaoul, as powerful and hun-
gry as ever, sets off the new crisis,
and frees (lavril from his prison.
Fleeing southward, Gavril aids the
Smarnan rebels, then decides to
rid himself of the dragon forever.
To do that, he must return the ni-
bies — ^the tears of Artamon — ^to the
eye of the carved dragon finm which
they were stolen. Of course, that
turns out to be both more complex
and more dangerous than anyone
expects.

Ash places interesting charac-
ters against a richly drawn back-
ground, then runs them through
an exhausting gamut of experi-
ence, fi*om torture to exhilaration.
The Russian flavor is in itself suffi-
ciently exotic to set this one apart
fi’om the inn of the mill fantasy.

138

Peter Heck

Asimov's

ONE KING, ONE SOLDIER
by Alexander C. Irvine
Del Rey, $13.95 (tp)

ISBN: 0-345*46696-9

Irvine pulls together baseball, a
Grail quest, and the Beat poets in
a fantasy that jumps between the
late nineteenth century and the
post- World War II era.

Lance Porter is an American sol-
dier wounded in the Korean War
and shipped to San Francisco for
mustering out. There, unexpected-
ly, he finds himself at the cusp of
the incipient Beat movement, in
particular the poet Jack Spicer
G925-65), whose use of Arthurian
legend and SF imagery make him
a natural for transplanting into
Irvine’s fantasy world. Lance also
learns that his glrlfnend EUie has
imexpectedly come to Berkeley to
meet him, although for reasons he
can’t quite understand, he can’t
bring himself to follow through and
see her.

But he does meet another woman,
Gwen, who immediately takes him
to bed — ^then, almost equally quick-
ly, seems to ix)p him. An old fiiend
who shows up ^ally tips Lance off
to the strange destiny into which he
has fallen: reenactment of the Grad
legend in a new century. This brings
into perspective two other stories
that are developed in parallel with
Lance’s: that of Arthur Rimbaud,
the French symbolist poet who died
obscurely in Africa in 1891, and
George Gibson, a minor league
baseball player (to judge by chronol-
ogy, not the George “Moon” Gibson
who played for the Pirates in the
early 1900s). Both, as it turns out,
were involved in the grail quest —
and, as Irvine develops the story,
both the poet and the baseball play-
er became rivals for the possession
of the sacred object.

As with any retelling of the Grad
story, Irvine faces the dilemma of
mal^g something fresh out of the
old McGuffin without betraying its
essence. Luckily, there is no single
canonical version; his predecessors
run the gamut from Tennyson and
Wagner to Samuel R. Delany (Nova),
Bernard Malamud (The Natural),
and Monty P3rthon. Even better,
the game lies in the quest more
than in the object, althou^ the Grad
must remain worthy of the supreme
effort its seekers expend, or else the
story risks devolving into parody.
Irvine plays many familiar quasi-
historical cards, from the extirpa-
tion of the Templars to the reloca-
tion of the Ark to the hills of Ethi-
opia. But despite the presence of
the manic Beats emd other appar-
ently light elements at the begin-
ning of the stoiy, it aspires to a real
seriousness of tone, as the horrors
of European colonialism counter-
point (Gibson’s journey across
Africa in search of Rimbaud and
the Grad.

On the whole, a very powerful
modern reworking of one of the
central myths of fantasy. Especial-
ly recommended for readers with
an affinity for baseball, the Beats,
or both.

CROSSROADS: Tales of the
Southern Literary Fantastic
Edited by F. Brett Cox
and Andy Duncan
Tor, $24.95 (he)

ISBN: 0-765-30813-4

Here’s an idea that seems natur-
al enough: an anthology of stories
by some of the talented SF/Fantasy
writers living in the South. After
all, as the editors point out, a sig-
nificant number of the seminal
writers in our field have southern
roots — ^including such eminent pre-

On Books

139

February 2005

decessors as Edgar Allan Poe, Joel
Chandler Harris, and William
Faulkner, as well as a pretty good
cross section of current writers. It’s
from the latter crop that this an-
thology is drawn.

The contributors include such
regular award-collectors as John
Kessel, Michael Swanwick, Glene
Wolfe, Michael Bishop, and Dimcan
himself along with Jack McDevitt,
Scott Edelman, Ian McDowell, Bud
Webster — ^twenty-seven in all. And
the majority are undeniably south-
ern, ei^er by current residence or
by origin. (There appear to be a cou-
ple of ringers, such as Swanwick, a
prominent Philadelphian.) But the
southern focus is more a question of
subject matter than of the writers’
home town.

Gene Wolfe’s “Houston, 1943” tells
about a small boy whose night-
mares recycle Peter Pan into the
stuff of horror. Edelman shows an
irony-impaired time traveler con-
demned by advanced aliens to mon-
itor the early life of Randy Newman
to prevent him from straying into
earnestness. McDevitt looks at the
future of a small town after the
abandonment of the space program
in the wake of a plague. Bud Web-
ster portrays a second death of
Christ, this time as a derelict in a
homeless shelter. Honoree Fanonne
Jeffers and Kalamu Ya Salaam are
among the African American writ-
ers who give the book perspective
by showing the South from the
point of view of the oppressed.
Salaam’s “Alabama,” with its re-
minder that the days of lynching
are after all not so far away, is chill-
ing.

While not all the stories reach
the same level — ^it would be some-
thing of a miracle if they did — ^tlie
best here are solid testimonies to

the strength of the southern story-
telling tradition, and to the ability
of SF and fantasy to adopt a re-
gional dialect to the advantage of
both.

THE Km WHO NAMED
PLUTO And the Stories of
Other Extraordinary Young
People in Science
by Marc McCutcheon
Illustrated by Jon Cannell
Chronicle Books, $15.95 (he)
ISBN; 0-8118-3770-X

The subtitle pretty much sums
up the major appeal of this YA sci-
ence book: stories of yoimg people
who made some contribution to sci-
ence.

The title essay, for example, con-
cerns Venetia Burney, an eleven-
year-old English girl who, in 1933,
submitted a name for the newly
discovered planet at the outer edge
of the solar system. Inspired by a
great uncle who had named Pho-
bos and Deimos, the moons of
Mars, she studied the names of
other bodies of the solar system,
and the mythological stories from
which the names had been chosen,
before proposing a name — Pluto —
that not only fit into the existing
structure, but subtly, in its first two
letters, honored Percival Lowell,
who had spent much of his career
fruitlessly searching for the new
planet.

At first, some of the other choices
seem a bit far-fetched; every inven-
tor or scientist was once 3^ung, and
a fair number of them were inspired
in their careers by something that
happened in their youth. But as it
happens, a number of people actu-
ally did make some key break-
through at an early age.

Emily Rosa is probably not a
household name, but at age nine.

140

Peter Heck

Asimov's

she devised a simple experiment by
which she debunked several practi-
tioners of “therapeutic touch.”
Brought up by skeptical parents,
she applied their principles to a
test in which the practitioners
were required to sense which hand
she held out; their success rate was
well below expectation. Her results
were published in the Journal of
the American Medical Association —
an accomplishment many seasoned
researchers might envy.

Philo Farnsworth, who went on
to acquire 165 patents, was only
eighteen when he jotted down an
electrical diagram. It was the key
innovation that eventually led to
the development of television: a
method for breaking a visual image
into individual pixels that could be
transmitted one at a time. While
Farnsworth met with only mixed
success in the world of commercial
electronic engineering, he was
eventually recognized as the “in-
ventor of television.”

Another inventor to whom sci-
ence fiction readers will easily re-
late is Robert Goddard, the father
of American rocket science. Again,
while Goddard’s real work was
done as an adult (his most famous

article was pubhshed when he was
thirty-eight), he achieved a key vi-
sion at age seventeen while climb-
ing a backyard cherry tree. By that
date, he had already made several
abortive attempts at flying devices
(this was in 1899, pre-Wright
Brothers), but that day, he hit upon
the notion of a machine that could
fly to Mars, the idea that was to
drive him for the rest of his career.

Then there’s Isaac Asimov, who
surely needs no introduction to
readers of this magazine. A book-
worm in his youth, he became one
of the most prolific and successful
of writers, in fiction and non-fiction
alike. Again, the book focuses more
on his youthful inspiration than on
his mature achievement (which, to
pick a nit, has more to do with
making science accessible than
with advancing it directly). But
that’s the point here — ^to suggest to
young readers that following their
dreams, with sufficient application
and ingenuity, can bring results
that nobody can dismiss as kid
stuff This one might be a good gift
for any young person with a bud-
ding interest in a scientific field,
whether it be dinosaurs, cryptol-
ogy, or rocket science. O

Moving?

Please send both your old and new address (and include both zip codes)
to our subscription department.

Write to us at Asimov’s Sdence Fiction, Dept NS, 6 Prowitt St, Norwalk, CT
06855- 1 220. Or on our websiie.www.asiinovs.com

On Books

141

SF CONVENTIONAL COLENDOH

W ith the holidays winding down, it’s time to think about getting out for cxxis. Plan now for social week-
ends with your favorite SF authors, editors, artists, and fellow fans. For an explanation of con{vention)s,
a sample of SF folksongs, info on fanzines aixf dubs, and how to get a later, longer list of cons, serxf
me an SASE (self-addressed, stamped #10 [business] envelope) at 10 Hill #22-1, Newark NJ 07102.
The hot line is (973) 242-5999. If a machine answers (with a list of the week’s cons), leave a message and
I’ll call back on my nickel. When writing cons, send an SASE. For free listings, tell me of your con 6 rrxxiths
out Ljook for me at cons behind the Filthy Pierre badge, playing a musical keyboard.— Erwin S. Strauss

JANUARY 2005

7-9— GARIk. For info, write: Box 702, Alpharetta GA 30009. Or phone: (973) 242-5999 (10 am to 10 pm, not collect).
(Web) gafitk.org. (E-mdl) registration@gafilk.org. Con wiN be held in: Atlanta GA (if city omitted, same as in address)
at the Holiday Inn Airport North. Quests wNI indude: Sloan, Wachowiak, Savitsky. SF/fantasy folksinging.

14-16— Afisia, Bldg. 600, #322, 1 Kendall Sq., Cambridge MA 02139. ari8ia.org. Park Plaza, Boston MA. B. Hambly.
14-16— RuatyCon, Box 27075, Seattle WA 98165. rustycon.coni. SeaTac Fladisson. R. Steve Adams, IKV Tmar.
14-16— ChattaCon, Box 23908, Chattanooga TN 37422. (770) 578^1. Chattanooga TN. Larry Niven, Chris Bunch.
21-23— ConFuslon, Box 8284, Ann Arbor Ml 48107. stHyagLorg. Troy Ml. E. Bull, W. Shetteriy, D. Grime, C. Ready.
28-30— VMCon, HRSFA 4 Univ. Hall, Cambridge MA 02138. vericon.org. Harvard U. SF, fantasy, gaming, anime.

FEBRUARY 2005

4-6— UK Fllk Con, do Weingart, 263 Sprucewood Dr., Levittown NY 11756. contablle,org.uk. In England. Music.
4-6— AltCon, Box 177194, Irving TX 75019. all-con.org. Sterling Hotel, Dallas TX. Barry Diamond, Adam Hughes.
11-13— CapriCon, Box 60085, Chicago IL 60660. capricon.org. Sheraton, Arlington Heights IL. J. Hogan, S. Garrity.
11-13— FarPobit, 11708 Troy Ct, Waldorf MD 20601. farpointcom. Marriott, Hunt Valley (Baltimore) MD. Media SF.
18-20— Boskone, Box 809, Framingham MA 01701. (617) 776-3243 (fax), boskone.org. Sheraton, Boston MA. Card.
18-20— VieionCon, Box 1415, Springfield MO 65801. (417) 886-7219. Clarion. Bedell, Capps, Gorham, Strain, Turner.
18-20— GaHIFrey, Box 3021, N. HoltywoodCA 91609. gatlifreyone.com. Los Angeles CA Venue, guests TBA. Dr. Who.

24- 27— Left Coast Crime, 2626 N. Mesa #261, El Paso TX 79902. Ieftcoastcrime2005.com. Paco I. Taibo. Mysteries.

25- 27— Redemption, 26 King's Meadow View, Weatherby LS22 7FX, UK. convention8.org.uk/redemption. Bab 5.

MARCH 2005

4-6— Potlatch, c/o Box 5328, Berkeley CA 94704. Potlatch-8t.org. Ramada Plaza, San Francisco CA Written SF.
11-13— PortmeiriCon, 6 of 1, Box 66, Ipswich IP2 9PZ, UK. portmelricon.com. Portmeirion UK. “Prisoner" TV show.
18-20— LunaCon, 847A Ave. #234, New York, NY 10017. hinacon.org. Sheraton, Meadowlands NJ.

18-20— TechnICon, Box 256, Blacksburg VA 24063. technicon.org. No more information available at press time.
25-28— UK Naf I. Con, c/o J. Dowd, 4 Burnside Ave., Sheffield S8 9FR, UK. paragon2.org.uk. Hinddey England.
25-28— NZ Naf I. Con, Box 13-574, Johnsonville, Wellington, New Zealand, icon.8f.org.nz. O.S. Card, B. Geradts.

30-Sep. 3— Nlppon2007, Box 314, Annapolis Jet MD 20701. nippon2007.org. Yokohama Japan. WbridCon. $160+

Asimov's February '05

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AUDIO/VIDEO

Audiobooks, Niven, LeGuin, Willis, Baxter,
Egan, Sterling, Reed, Etc.
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JESUS PROJECT. First (audio) tape free: P.O.
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Nova Audio. Scifi Short stories by Robert Sil-
verberg, Sarah Hoyt, Cecilia Tan, & more.
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BOOKS/PUBUCATIONS

Ancient Designs. A novel by Richard Hage.
A galaxy in distress. Archeologist-engineers
with a mission. At Amazon.com. ISBN #
0-595-31151-2.

BUYING SCIENCE FICTION magazines, book
collections. Will travel for large accumulations.
Bowman, Box 167, Carmel, IN 46082.

CHRISTIAN SF MAGAZINE via web or CD.

http://www.gateway-sf-magazine.com

In the eons-long warfare between bacteria
and mankind, what would the world
be like if bacteria won? The Shadow of
Armageddon by Jim LeMay.
http://www.silver<al(epublishing.com/catalog/shadow.htnril

PUBUSH YOUR BOOK ONLINE, Third Millen-
nium Publishing, a cooperative of online writ-
ers and resources, http://3mpub.com

Scuxxworms by Ella Mack. New, original,
hard Sci-Fi. Intelligent, funny.
http://3mpub.com/emack/

The Combat Poets of Maya, a novel by
Bill Johnson in the vein of Hitchhikers Guide to
the Galaxy. Info, www.combatpoetsofmaya,
www.storyispromise.com

The universe has a great secret. Read Life
Everlasting. Visit henryblanchard.com

Writers Wanted. 21st Century Pulp Fiction.
wvvw.digitalpulp.org

CAMES

Chat Gaming! Code of Unaris - A chat role-
playing rulebook and setting guide. A fun,
text-based fantasy game you can play through
chat. Available for $15.95 from Goldleaf
Games at www.goldleafgames.com.
ISBN 0-9748757-0-8

INSTRUCTION

Book Editing - Sci Fi & Fantasy

Book-Editing.com SciFiEditor.com

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NEXI ISSUE

FEBRUARY

ISSUE

ALSO

IN

FEBRUARY

EXCITING

FEATURES

Nebula Award-winner Esther M. Friesner, one of the best-known
writers of funny fantasy in the business, returns in a decidedly not
funny, more somber mood next issue to give us our lead story for
March, taking us through the deceptively pastoral rolling hills and
fields of the nineteenth century English countryside for a strange and
momentous encounter in a rural manor-house that will determine just
who — or w/iaf— is “The Fraud.”

Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award-winner Gene Wolfe invites
you to stoop and pick up “The Card” — one that could change your life
forever; popular and prolific writer Mary Rosenblum whisks us aloft
for a surprising— and suspenseful — look at life in orbit, in “Green
Shift”; new writer Lori Selke, making her Asimov’s debut, invites us
along for an unscheduled tour of “The Dodo Factory”; R. Neube vis-
its an impoverished backwoods future America where the spirit of
entrepreneurship is still alive, in a grisly sort of way, in “Organs R
Us”; new writer David D. Levine, making his Asimov's debut, takes
us to a distant alien planet where a hapless human salesman must
learn to overcome entirely new categories of sales resistance, in
“Tk’tk’tk” (no, my fingers didn’t slip on the keys; that’s the title!): Bud
Sparhawk, a regular at our sister magazine. Analog, visits these
pages to spin a hard-hitting and remorseless story of total war with
an implacable alien enemy and the kind of thing humans have to do
to survive it, in “Bright Red Star”; Steven Utley, whose “Silurian
Tales” have been among the most acclaimed stories in the genre for
more than a decade now, gives us a ringside seat for “The Wave-
Function Collapse”; and new writer Matthew Hugbes returns with a
sly look at a Great Man having an encounter that is probably not
going to make the history books, in “The Devil You Don’t.”

Robert Sllverberg’s “Reflections” column muses about being “A Pair
of Ragged Jaws”; and Paul Di Filippo brings us “On Books”; plus an
array of cartoons, poems, and other features. Look for our March
2005 issue on sale on your newsstand on February 1, 2004. Or sub-
scribe today and be sure to miss none of the fantastic stuff we have
coming up for you next year (you can also subscribe to Asimov’s
online, in varying formats, including in downloadable form for your
PDA, by going to our website, www.asimovs.com).

The STAR TREK^saga continues.

Nothing comes between
a crew and their mission.

The crew of
Starship Enterprise"'
is reunited. But are
they undivided?

As Captain James T. Kirk, Spock,
and McCoy help refugee colonists
from a destroyed planet, a dark
secret from Kirk’s past threatens
their ultimate survival.

^wf.^mofBays.com/st

... . ..

w«W;$tarti@l<.com ESESS avm^mcomI^

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